Top 100 General Rule Quotes
#1. Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice.
Walter Raleigh
#2. The general rule is that there is profit in confusion; the more confusion, the more profit. Therefore, the best approach is to create problems and then offer the solutions.
Milton William Cooper
#3. It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.
Robert Payne
#4. If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.
John Holt
#5. But in Afghanistan, the general rule was that since you were fighting the Taliban, which was not a lawful government force, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. And that led to a lot of excesses in Afghanistan, excesses like Abu Ghraib that were already well-publicized.
Yaroslav Trofimov
#6. As a general rule, I abstain from reading reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.
Abraham Lincoln
#7. I have a consistent rule: The American people should know as much about the Pentagon as the Soviet Union and China do, as much about General Motors as Ford does, and as much about City Bank as Chase Manhattan does.
Ralph Nader
#8. As a general rule, if you have a product that doesn't get the job done that a customer is needing to get done, then often you have to offer it for zero. Because if you ask for money for it - because if it doesn't do the job well, they won't pay for it.
Clayton M Christensen
#9. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."
~Louis D. Brandeis
Louis D. Brandeis
#10. No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.
Robert Burton
#11. As a general rule, US-based multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is sad, because they have the capability to provide the best and most trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so.
Edward Snowden
#12. And I became fixated, too, upon Katharine Hepburn's famous Fred and Ginger theory: He gives her class, she gives him sex. Was this a general rule? Did all friendships - all relations - involve this discreet and mysterious exchange of qualities, this exchange of power?
Zadie Smith
#13. Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.
Barry Goldwater
#14. As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client.
Abraham Lincoln
#15. It is the general rule of the moral universe that those men prosper who do their work with all their hearts, while those are almost certain to fail who go to their labour leaving half their hearts behind them.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#16. Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business.
Aristotle.
#17. Well, as a general rule, most women, before they've got 'em, present to their men smiling, agreeing faces. They hide their thoughts. You now, when you're feeling hateful, honey, you are hateful.
Harper Lee
#18. As a general rule, no one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here, because that sentence has never been true anywhere on Earth,
John Oliver
#19. An Ingmar Bergman film would probably owe a sizeable bulk of its import and its direction and its quality to the directorial end and to the director because it's uniquely a Bergman film. But that again is not the general - no, that's much more the exception than the rule.
Rod Serling
#20. I am going on eight years of marriage, and when it comes to communication, I believe you should always communicate in a time of peace. As a general rule, never try to communicate in the heat of the moment.
Tony Gaskins
#21. As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at all, you should never route through or peer with the UK under any circumstances. Their fibers are radioactive, and even the Queen's selfies to the pool boy get logged.
Edward Snowden
#22. I think it is the general rule that the originator of a new idea is not the most suitable person to develop it, because his fears of something going wrong are really too strong ... At age 69.
Paul Dirac
#23. As a general rule, teenage girls never, ever see solitude as a choice.
Alice Pung
#25. There's a general rule that I always go by, and it's that you fall for who you fall for. Whatever small issue you get hung up on, whether it's because they're shorter than you, younger than you or they live far away - if you really are crazy about someone, none of that matters.
Taylor Swift
#26. The reason why people think of programming as being hard is because you're writing down a general rule which is going to be used for lots of instances that a particular instance must process correctly.
Gerald Jay Sussman
#27. As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#28. With journalism, films always have to be to do with some personal statement of your own. As a general rule, I resist that. In the States, a question that kept coming up was this: 'How can you, as a man, talk about three women?'
Stephen Daldry
#29. There seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.
David Graeber
#30. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we supposed. And we ourselves are, too.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#31. International trade in chemical products is not free. . . . Joint control of the market became the general rule; free competition, the exception.
George W. Stocking
#32. Some say it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. That is a defeatist attitude. I intend to rule everywhere, not just in Hell.
- General Agamemnon
New Memoirs
Brian Herbert
#33. Today, public companies don't like the idea of conglomerates. People want to buy something in which they know where they are putting their money - into the food business or the oil and gas business. They don't want to put their money into a hodge-podge as a general rule.
Jim Pattison
#34. As a general rule, it is difficult for people in public life to change their minds. There is an immediate rush to portray politicians as "flip-floppers" when they shift position on anything, even if they do so following a careful consideration of an issue rather than a meeting with a pollster.
Anonymous
#35. I should say in general the advantage of education is to better fit a man for life's work. I would advise young men to take a college course, as a rule, but think some are just as well off with a thorough business training.
John D. Rockefeller
#36. It seems to be a general rule that sciences begin their development with the unusual. They have to develop considerable sophistication before they interest themselves in the commonplace.
Ralph Linton
#37. As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.
Paul Haggis
#38. History cannot teach us any general rule, principle, or law. There is no means to abstract from a historical experience a posteriori any theories or theorems concerning human conduct and policies. The
Ludwig Von Mises
#39. As a general rule, whenever guys have problems approaching girls, it's because they're afraid of rejection or they're afraid of something specific. The way that you get over a fear like that is you figure out what the worst is that can happen.
Tucker Max
#40. As a general rule, if you want to get at the truth - hear both sides and believe neither.
Josh Billings
#41. As a general rule, writing is very inconvenient.
Shannon Hale
#42. Young men most needed experience. They could not play well if they trusted to a general rule. Every card had a relative value. Principles had better be left aside; values were enough.
Henry Adams
#43. A basic rule of baking is that, in general, it's almost impossible to make an inedible batch of brownies.
Linda Sunshine
#44. A general rule: if enough people predict something, it won't happen.
J.G. Ballard
#45. Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
#46. If anything, as a general rule, the cheaper the movie the more creative the experience, generally speaking. Its not to denigrate expensive movies. I dont want to seem biting the hands that feed me, but with big movies, especially with a lot of effects, the role of the actor is somewhat diminished.
Alfred Molina
#47. I would rather deal with a tyrant any day than a committee. Committees, as a general rule, aren't willing to take chances, which is why you have a committee in the first place - so you can share the blame.
Hal Riney
#48. Almost everything can be construed as sexual harassment depending upon the way it is said. One general rule of thumb is to think of your female co-workers as you would your sister. Yes, she is a woman. No, she is not a sexual object. Yes, your parents probably like her more than they like you.
Linda Sunshine
#49. With writing music, as a general rule I'm looking for something that surprises me, that doesn't fall within what's easy for me.
John Maus
#50. As a general rule, I preferred not to have my soul reaped.
Rick Riordan
#51. My pitch count as a general rule was 135. And I knew how many pitches I had when I went to the mound for the last three innings.
Tom Seaver
#52. As a general rule when it's a city bus versus any biological creature, it's safe to bet on the bus.
John Scalzi
#53. A general rule for the good use of time is to accustom oneself to live in a continual dependence on the Spirit of God.
Francois Fenelon
#54. As a general rule, if you are prone to melodramatic meltdowns, please avoid purchasing a webcam for any reason.
Ray William Johnson
#55. I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.
Leonardo Da Vinci
#56. I mean, most actresses can't host and most hostesses can't act, and that's the general rule in the industry.
Brooke Burke
#57. As a general rule, the less one's sense of life fulfillment, the greater one's death anxiety.
Irvin D. Yalom
#58. As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them.
Maria Mitchell
#59. If I were to give one piece of advice, I would say to never accept anything that you hear or see at face value. As a general rule of thumb, then the more you question, the better.
Ernest Gaines
#60. As to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other.
Giacomo Casanova
#61. Our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people derive from their own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them.
Marcel Proust
#62. A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin
#63. The political body, therefore, is also a moral being which has a will; and this general will, which tends always to the conservation and well-being of the whole and of each part of it ... is, for all members of the state ... the rule of what is just or unjust.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#64. So far I go with the Socialists as to think it a pretty general rule that, where monopoly is necessary, it is better in public hands.
Frederick Pollock
#65. It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.
Michel De Montaigne
#66. As a general rule, Lord Maccon appreciated a voluptuous woman. He liked a bit of meat on the female form, more to grab on to - and more to chew off.
Gail Carriger
#68. As a general rule, I didn't like guys who styled their hair like they just woke up. Messiness should never be a goal. It should be a consequence.
Veronica Rossi
#69. [T]he Old Testament, [ ... ] if considered as a general rule of conduct, would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality.
David Hume
#70. When you're setting up a budget, a general rule is to start with your fixed expenses - your housing and insurance payments, and car payment, if you own one.
Jean Chatzky
#71. As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt.
Shana Alexander
#72. READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang.
Ambrose Bierce
#73. The real trouble with the writing game is that no general rule can be worked out for uniform guidance, and this applies to sales as well as to writing.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#74. I've found, as a general rule of life, that the things you think are going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all.
P.G. Wodehouse
#75. As a general rule, books don't sparkle at me.
Chris Cannon
#76. As a general rule of thumb, Democrats do better in national elections when the year's defining issue is economic fairness, and Republicans do better when the defining issue is national security.
Rick Perlstein
#77. The general rule is that my life is focused on the present, and very little on the past. If anything, I'm a little bit more focused toward the future.
Nicholas Sparks
#78. It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.
Thucydides
#79. Usually, characters that are doing something nefarious have some extra layers to them. The general rule is bad people don't necessarily think they are bad.
Jason Alexander
#80. The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.
Conor Oberst
#81. Men, as a general rule, shy away from therapy because there is no obvious way to keep score.
Merrill Markoe
#82. Anyone taking heroin is thinking about taking heroin more than they're thinking about anything else. That's the general rule about most drugs.
Mick Jagger
#83. My general rule of thumb is, once something's a ride at Disneyland, I assume that it is no longer a threat in real life. Which is why I don't expect to get attacked by a giant tea cup anytime soon.
Arj Barker
#84. When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: "Leave slide rules here." If I didn't do that, I'd find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, "Boss, you can't do it."
Charles Kettering
#85. I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.
Jane Austen
#86. It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.
Paul Thomas Anderson
#87. As a general rule, nine tenths of happiness may be said to rest on the state of health; when this is perfect, anything and everything may be a source of pleasure; in illness, on the other hand, nothing, no matter what its nature may be, is capable of affording any real enjoyment.
Edgar Saltus
#88. The general rule is that anything that is passed on in reproduction does not undergo senescence.
George C. Williams
#89. I don't hate myself, as a general rule. I'd say the best way to describe it is that I have moments of self-loathing at fairly regular intervals.
Janeane Garofalo
#90. As a general rule, it is foolish to do just what other people are doing, because there are almost sure to be too many people doing the same thing.
William Stanley Jevons
#91. (...) there's a rule that no question affecting the general public may be finally decided until it has been debated for three days.
Thomas More
#92. As a general rule, biology tends to be conservative. It's rare that evolution 'invents' the same process several times.
Gero Miesenbock
#93. If you feel like getting a divorce, you are no exception to the general rule.
Elizabeth Hawes
#94. Sometimes I really hated people in general. I wanted to believe in the good that I knew existed in all of us, but it was so disheartening to see what happened when we let our bad over-rule that good.
J.M. Northup
#95. The best conducting technique is that which achieves the maximum musical result with the minimum effort. The only general rule is to infuse all gestures with precision, clarity, and vitality.
Fritz Reiner
#97. The general rule for refactoring into a new inheritance hierarchy is to arrange code so that you can promote abstractions rather than demote concretions.
Sandi Metz
#98. In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.
Geoffrey Chaucer
#99. It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
William Cowper
#100. Doubtless a good general rule for close friendships, where confidences are freely exchanged, is that what one is not informed about, one may not inquire about.
Louis Kronenberger
