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

June 2, 2025
You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
May 11, 2025
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
April 2, 2025
[I occupy] the extreme right-wing edge of the left-wing movement.
Page 118 of 123