Quotes Library

September 7, 2025

If you want to get along, go along.

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961), American politician, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.173

How will you make a name for yourself if you just go along, to get along? How strong is the desire to stand out from the rest of the pack, and to what end?

If a majority is what carries the vote on any issue, going along is an absolute necessity. If you cannot park your ideals, if practical approaches are anathema, if you view the perfect as preferable to the possible, you’re in the wrong career.


More Quotes

August 19, 2025
Laws are like spiders’ webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but larger things break through and escape.
October 4, 2025
Most men make little other use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.
August 1, 2025
The greatest gift of any statesman rests not in knowing what concessions to make, but recognizing when to make them.
Page 109 of 122