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

September 18, 2025
Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.
October 30, 2025
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
July 28, 2025
I always voted at my party’s call, And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
Page 111 of 122