Playing by the Rules

Sunday, January 25, 2015 – Playing by the Rules

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else. ~ Albert Einstein

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. ~ George Orwell

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. ~ Joseph Campbell

Integrity has no need of rules. ~ Albert Camus

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference. ~ Carl von Clausewitz

Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness. ~ Otto von Bismarck

The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house. ~ Thomas Reid

Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own. ~ Chuck Yeager

A good teacher must know the rules; a good pupil, the exceptions. ~ Martin H. Fischer

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn’t obey the rules. ~ Alan Bennett

It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it’s persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any. ~ Wallace Stegner, All the Little Live Things

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind. ~ Douglas MacArthur

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men. ~ Douglas Bader

Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights – because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper. ~ Larry Flynt

Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule. ~ Jefferson Davis

Laws are rules established by men who are in control of organized violence for the non-fulfillment of which those who do not fulfill them are subjected to personal injuries, the loss of liberty, and even capital punishment. ~ Leo Tolstoy

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. ~ Winston Churchill

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. ~ P. G. Wodehouse

It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back. ~ James George Frazer

There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the rule. ~ Samuel Butler

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer. ~ Edmund Burke

Hell, there are no rules here; we are trying to accomplish something. ~ Thomas Alva Edison

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you’re young just so you’ll have the strength to break them when you’re old. ~ Mark Twain

There are no exceptions to the rule that everybody likes to be an exception to the rule. ~ Charles Osgood

I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes in “The Sign of the Four”

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule. ~ Charles Dickens, spoken by Jaggers in Great Expectations

I am not allowed to use desperate remedies until desperate diseases are really apparent. Otherwise we become just like our enemies – breaking all the rules whenever we imagine that it might possibly do some vague good to humanity in the remote future. – Director Ransom in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength

Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation. ~ William Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

If you obey all the rules, you’ll miss all the fun. ~ Katherine Hepburn

While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them. ~ Sir Alfred Jules Ayer

I’d trip my mother. I’ll help her up, brush her off, and tell her I’m sorry. But mother don’t make it to third. ~ Leo Durocher

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