Yip Harburg Quotes

And only God who makes the tree Also makes the fools like me. But only fools like me, you see, Can make a God, who makes a tree.

I am a rebel by birth. … I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest.

My heart is like the willow That bends, but never breaks. It sighs when summer jilts her, It sings when April wakes. So you, who come a-smiling With summer in your eyes, Think not that your beguiling Will take me by surprise. My heart's prepared for aching The moment you take wing. But not, my friend, for breaking While there's another spring.

When the idle poor Become the idle rich You'll never know just who is who or who is which.

WHERE and WHEN Are lost in space. THERE and THEN Do not embrace. So before we disappear Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE.

Say, its only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me.

Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way. All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs Heard the night cry down with traitors, and the dawn shout "Up the reds!"

Follow the yellow brick road.

So I ask each weepin' willow And each brook along the way, And each lad that comes a-whistlin' Tooralay How are things in Glocca Morra This fine day?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

No matter how much I probe and prod, I cannot quite believe in God;
But oh, I hope to God that He Unswervingly believes in me.

We're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. You'll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was.

No matter how high or great the throne, What sits on it is the same as your own.

Without your love It's a honky-tonk parade Without your love It's a melody played in a penny arcade. It's a Barnum and Bailey world Just as phony as it can be But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me.

To let a fool kiss you is stupid, To let a kiss fool you is worse.