Bevan’s Law
Aneurin Bevan
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Marcy’s Law
William Learned Marcy
To the victor belong the spoils.
Rayburn’s First Law
Sam Rayburn
When you get too big a majority you’re immediately in trouble.
Rench’s Law
J. F. Rench
While the people who run political campaigns complain most about their shortage of money the first thing they run out of is time . . . to listen and to think.
Senator Sorghum’s Laws of Politics
Sorghum
Politics is the art of turning influence into affluence.
Every practical politician should frankly confess to a profound respect for money, for he is a bad workman who quarrels with his tools. (See also Bacon’s Law and Clinton’s Law of Politics.)
A good memory is often a great help, but knowing just when to forget things sometimes counts for more.
Anybody can keep a promise, but it sometimes requires an artist to break one.
Never do anything that popular opinion and your own sense of right do not approve. Hire someone else to do it.
Occasionally a reputation for great wisdom is obtained by doing absolutely nothing and thereby avoiding mistakes. Corollary: It is safer to be criticised for not doing anything than it is to be blamed for doing something badly. (See also Jefferson’s Ukase and Byron Johnson’s Laws of Bureaucratic Success.)
Don’t complain that you are not getting what you deserve. Your impressions in such matters may be misleading. If you saw what you deserve coming, maybe you would dodge. (See also De Maistre’s Law.)
When in doubt for an argument, turn to statistics. They sound wise and very few people will do the arithmetic necessary to contradict you. (See also the last of the epigrams under Disraeli’s Second Law.)
Rogers’s Laws
Will Rogers
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else (Illiterate Digest, a collection of his newspaper columns 1924).
The more you read and observe about this politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best (Illiterate Digest).
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr (Illiterate Digest).
When you straddle a thing, it takes a long time to explain it (Convention Articles, June 29th 1924).
You know, everybody is ignorant only on different subjects (Weekly Articles, August 31st 1924).
Heroing is one of the shortest lived professions there is (Weekly Articles, July 17th 1928).
The more ignorant you are, the quicker you fight (Daily Telegrams, August 11th 1929).
Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up then sell it. If it don’t go up don’t buy it (Daily Telegrams, October 31st 1929). Note the date: this was the Thursday after Black Tuesday, the day of the great Wall Street crash that presaged the Depression of the 1930s.
You can’t say civilization don’t advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way (Daily Telegrams, December 22nd 1929).
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save (letter New York Times, April 29th 1930).
Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays (Daily Telegrams, June 28th 1931).
You can’t make a dollar without taking it from somebody (Weekly Articles, October 2nd 1932).
If I don’t see things your way, well, why should I? (Weekly Articles, December 18th 1932).
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