Rayburn Quotes

#1. Trying to find my way around the Rayburn building is always a challenge. Combining my poor sense of direction with a confusing design is not good.

Gregg Harper

#2. Sam Rayburn on LBJ's recuperation from his heart attack: It would kill him if he relaxed.

Robert A. Caro

#3. The author describes Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn as seldom at ease without a gavel in his hand.

Robert A. Caro

#4. Readiness for opportunity makes for success. Opportunity often comes by accident; readiness never does.

Sam Rayburn

#5. I like power and I like to use it.

Sam Rayburn

#6. They may be just as intelligent as you say. But I'd feel a helluva lot better if just one of them had ever run for sheriff.

Sam Rayburn

#7. A damn independent boy; independent as a hog on ice.

Sam Rayburn

#8. No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut.

Sam Rayburn

#9. Don't ever talk until you know what you are talking about.

Sam Rayburn

#10. You'll never get mixed up if you simply tell the truth. Then you don't have to remember what you have said, and you never forget what you have said.

Sam Rayburn

#11. The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart.

Sam Rayburn

#12. There are no degrees in honorableness. You either are or you aren't.

Sam Rayburn

#13. In a sense, being a full-time writer is less fun because there's no office to go to anymore, there's no set routine, there's no schedule. It can be quite isolating.

Aravind Adiga

#14. Son, if you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women, and then vote against 'em, you don't deserve to be here.

Sam Rayburn

#15. Dont try to go too fast. Learn your job. Dont ever talk until you know what youre talking about. If you want to get along, go along.

Sam Rayburn

#16. The true purpose of the strong is to promote greater strength in the weak, and not to keep the weak in that state where they are at the mercy of the strong.

Christian D. Larson

#17. If you want to get along, go along.

Sam Rayburn

#18. Poverty only tries men's souls. It is loneliness that breaks the heart.

Sam Rayburn

#19. Any jackass can kick down a barn. It takes a carpenter to build on.

Sam Rayburn

#20. Any man who will cheat for you will cheat against you.

Sam Rayburn

#21. Let the other fellow get the headlines. I'll take the laws.

Sam Rayburn

#22. Son, always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time.

Sam Rayburn

#23. And then you run. Because the only thing worse than her being gone is that you're still here.

Tricia Rayburn

#24. When you get too big a majority, you're immediately in trouble.'

Sam Rayburn

#25. Honey, there is no one right way to eat cannelloni.

Alyssa Brugman

#26. In time, all will be well - for all of us."
"You sound as if you truly believe that it will."
"Why shouldn't I? For Arman has given us the end of the story, has he not? Shamayim will be a wonderful home, even if this one remains dark.

Jill Williamson

#27. Too many critics mistake the deliberations of the Congress for its decisions.

Sam Rayburn

#28. Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.

Sam Rayburn

#29. If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is.

Sam Rayburn

#30. There's no education in the second kick of a mule

Sam Rayburn

#31. A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

Sam Rayburn

#32. I do get stopped a bit now and then, but I can go to the supermarket and on the Tube without being noticed. It's usually me that gets starstruck, especially by TV stars.

Eddie Redmayne

#33. You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.

Sam Rayburn