Murphy's laws and corollaries

Jump to An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws

Consult "The Power of Stupidity"

MURPHY'S LAWS

Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you think.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Mother nature is a bitch.
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
Every solution breeds new problems.

Murphy's Law of Research

Enough research will tend to support your theory.

Murphy's Law of Copiers

The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.

Murphy's Law of the Open Road:

When there is a very long road upon which there is a one-way bridge placed at random, and there are only two cars on that road, it follows that: (1) the two cars are going in opposite directions, and (2) they will always meet at the bridge.

Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics

Things get worse under pressure.

The Murphy Philosophy

Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws

Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy's Constant

Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value

Murphy's Corollaries

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious

Law of the Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary):

You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Corollary (Jenning):

The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Commentaries

Hill's Commentaries on Murphy's Laws

If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care.
If we have nothing to lose by change, relax.
If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
If it doesn't matter, it does not matter.

O'Toole's Commentary

Murphy was an optimist.

NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law

You never run out of things that can go wrong.

Murphy's Military Laws

Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are.
No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
Friendly fire ain't.
The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map.
The problem with taking the easy way out is that the enemy has already mined it.
The buddy system is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.
The further you are in advance of your own positions, the more likely your artillery will shoot short.
Incoming fire has the right of way.
If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush.
The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.
If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.
The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used on abandoned positions.
The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
There is nothing more satisfying that having someone take a shot at you, and miss.
Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire. Out of the combat zone, it draws sergeants.
If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.

Murphy's Technology Laws

You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
All's well that ends.
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
The first myth of management is that it exists.
A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
New systems generate new problems.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work.
Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.
The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.
To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.
After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order.
In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
The only perfect science is hind-sight.
Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
When all else fails, read the instructions.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Everything that goes up must come down.
Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner.
Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.

Murphy's Love Laws

All the good ones are taken.
If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. (corr. to 1)
The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you.
Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant.
The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to how much you love them.
Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.
The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.
Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
Nice guys(girls) finish last.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is the minute they find someone else.

Murphy's Laws of sex

The more beautiful the woman is who loves you, the easier it is to leave her with no hard feelings.
Nothing improves with age.
No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
Sex has no calories.
Sex takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
No sex with anyone in the same office.
Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
A man in the house is worth two in the street.
If you get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
Virginity can be cured.
When a man's wife learns to understand him, she usually stops listening to him.
Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can't stand years later.
Sex is dirty only if it's done right.
It is always the wrong time of month.
The best way to hold a man is in your arms.
When the lights are out, all women are beautiful.
Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won't either.
Sow your wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on Sunday pray for crop failure.
The younger the better.
The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.
It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden.
Sex discriminates against the shy and the ugly.
Before you find your handsome prince, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs.
There may be some things better than sex, and some things worse than sex. But there is nothing exactly like it.
Love your neighbor, but don't get caught.
Love is a hole in the heart.
If the effort that went in research on the female bosom had gone into our space program, we would now be running hot-dog stands on the moon.
Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
Do it only with the best.
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
One good turn gets most of the blankets.
You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.....unless in the mood.
Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
Never argue with a women when she's tired -- or rested.
A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't.
What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
Never say no.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn't love her.
Folks playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
Never stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
A man is only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
Love comes in spurts.
The world does not revolve on an axis.
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.
Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.
Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight.
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
"This won't hurt, I promise."

An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws

B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Y - Z

A

Abbott's Admonitions:

If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.
If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.

Abrams's Advice:

When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.

Rule of Accuracy:

When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.

Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.

Acheson's Rule of the Bureaucracy:

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

Acton's Law:

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Ade's Law:

Anybody can win -- unless there happens to be a second entry.

Airplane Law:

When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.

Alan's Law of Research

The theory is supported as long as the funds are.

Albrecht's Law:

Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being.

Algren's Precepts:

Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never play cards with a man named Doc. And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.

Allen's Law of Civilization:

It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it.

Agnes Allen's Law:

Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.

Allen's Axiom

When all else fails, follow instructions.

Allen's Distinction

The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep.

Fred Allen's Motto:

I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.

Alley's Axiom:

Justice always prevails . . . three times out of seven.

Alligator Allegory:

The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Allison's Precept

The best simple-minded test of expertise in a particular area is the ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in that area.

Anderson's Law

Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

Andrews's Canoeing Postulate:

No matter which direction you start it's always against the wind coming back.

Law of Annoyance:

When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you're certain you're finished with, you will need it instantly.

Anthony's Law of Force:

Don't force it, get a larger hammer.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:

Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.

Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your toes.

Laws of Applied Confusion:

The one piece that the plant forgot to ship is the one that supports 75% of the balance of the shipment.

Corollary: Not only did the plant forget to ship it, 50% of the time they haven't even made it. Truck deliveries that normally take one day will take five when you are waiting for the truck. After adding two weeks to the schedule for unexpected delays, add two more for the unexpected, unexpected delays. In any structure, pick out the one piece that should not be mismarked and expect the plant to cross you up.

Corollaries:

In any group of pieces with the same erection mark on it, one should not have that mark on it.
It will not be discovered until you try to put it where the mark says it's supposed to go.
Never argue with the fabricating plant about an error. The inspection prints are all checked off, even to the holes that aren't there.

Approval Seeker's Law:

Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.

The Aquinas Axiom:

What the gods get away with, the cows don't.

Army Axiom:

Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

Army Law:

If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you can't pick it up, paint it.

Ashley-Perry Statistical Axioms:

Numbers are tools, not rules.
Numbers are symbols for things; the number and the thing are not the same.
Skill in manipulating numbers is a talent, not evidence of divine guidance.
Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from nonpractitioners.
The product of an arithmetical computation is the answer to an equation; it is not the solution to a problem.
Arithmetical proofs of theorems that do not have arithmetical bases prove nothing.

Astrology Law:

It's always the wrong time of the month.

Fourteenth Corollary of Atwood's General Law of Dynamic Negatives:

No books are lost by loaning except those you particularly wanted to keep.

Avery's Rule of Three:

Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of a brand new series of three.

B

Babcock's Law:

If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will break it.

Baer's Quartet:

What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is good politics.

Bagdikian's Law of Editor's Speeches:

The splendor of an editor's speech and the splendor of his newspaper are inversely related to the distance between the city in which he makes his speech and the city in which he publishes his paper.

Baker's Byroad:

When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.

Baker's Law:

Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.

Baldy's Law:

Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.

Barber's Laws of Backpacking

The integral of the gravitational potential taken around any loop trail you chose to hike always comes out positive.
Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure.
The weight of your pack increases in direct proportion to the amount of food you consume from it. If you run out of food, the pack weight goes on increasing anyway.
The number of stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
The difficulty of finding any given trail marker is directly proportional to the importance of the consequences of failing to find it.
The size of each of the stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
The remaining distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as twilight approaches.
The net weight of your boots is proportional to the cube of the number of hours you have been on the trail.
When you arrive at your chosen campsite, it is full.
If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again.
The local density of mosquitos is inversely proportional to your remaining repellent.

Barrett's Laws of Driving:

You can get ANYWHERE in ten minutes if you go fast enough.
Speed bumps are of negligible effect when the vehicle exceeds triple the desired restraining speed.
The vehicle in front of you is traveling slower than you are.
This lane ends in 500 feet.

Barr's Comment on Domestic Tranquility:

On a beautiful day like this it's hard to believe anyone can be unhappy -- but we'll work on it.

Barth's Distinction

There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.

Bartz's Law of Hokey Horsepuckery:

The more ridiculous a belief system, the higher the probability of its success.

Baruch's Rule for Determining Old Age:

Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

Barzun's Laws of Learning

The simple but difficult arts of paying attention, copying accurately, following an argument, detecting an ambiguity or a false inference, testing guesses by summoning up contrary instances, organizing one's time and one's thought for study -- all these arts -- cannot be taught in the air but only through the difficulties of a defined subject. They cannot be taught in one course or one year, but must be acquired gradually in dozens of connections.
The analogy to athletics must be pressed until all recognize that in the exercise of Intellect those who lack the muscles, coordination, and will power can claim no place at the training table, let alone on the playing field.

Forthoffer's Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws

That which has not yet been taught directly can never be taught directly.
If at first you don't succeed, you will never succeed.

Baxter's First Law:

Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower national standard of living.

Baxter's Second Law:

The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency system always leads to depreciation, devaluation, demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction of that currency.

Baxter's Third Law:

In a free market good money always drives bad money out of circulation.

Beardsley's Warning to Lawyers:

Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity.

Beauregard's Law:

When you're up to your nose, keep your mouth shut.

Becker's Law:

It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.

Beifeld's Principle:

The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, and (3) a better looking and richer male friend.

Belle's Constant:

The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is usually about 0.6.

Benchley's Distinction:

There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.

Benchley's Law:

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

Berkeley's Laws:

The world is more complicated than most of our theories make it out to be.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Never decide to buy something while listening to the salesman.
Information which is true meets a great many different tests very well.
Most problems have either many answers or no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer.
An answer may be wrong, right, both, or neither. Most answers are partly right and partly wrong.
A chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link.
A statement may be true independently of illogical reasoning.
Most general statements are false, including this one.
An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER PROVES it.
The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it -- it probably isn't right.
If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made.
Being sure mistakes will occur is a good frame of mind for catching them.
Check the answer you have worked out once more -- before you tell it to anybody.
Estimating a figure may be enough to catch an error.
Figures calculated in a rush are very hot; they should be allowed to cool off a little before being used; thus we will have a reasonable time to think about the figures and catch mistakes.
A great many problems do not have accurate answers, but do have approximate answers, from which sensible decisions can be made.

Berra's Law:

You can observe a lot just by watching.

Berson's Corollary of Inverse Distances:

The farther away from the entrance that you have to park, the closer the space vacated by the car that pulls away as you walk up to the door.

Bicycle Law:

All bicycles weigh 50 pounds:

A 30-pound bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain.

A 40-pound bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain.

A 50-pound bicycle needs no lock or chain.

First Law of Bicycling:

No matter which way you ride it's uphill and against the wind.

The Billings Phenomenon:

The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious.

Billings's Law:

Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so.

Blaauw's Law:

Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology.

Blanchard's Newspaper Obituary Law:

If you want your name spelled wrong, die.

Bok's Law:

If you think education is expensive -- try ignorance.

Boling's Postulate:

If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.

Bolton's Law of Ascending Budgets:

Under current practices, both expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may be in excess.

Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Bonafede's Revelation:

The conventional wisdom is that power is an aphrodisiac. In truth, it's exhausting.

Boob's Law:

You always find something the last place you look.

Booker's Law:

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

Boozer's Revision:

A bird in the hand is dead.

Boren's Laws of the Bureaucracy:

When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
When in charge, ponder.

Borkowski's Law:

You can't guard against the arbitrary.

Borstelmann's Rule:

If everything seems to be coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.

Boston's Irreversible Law of Clutter:

In any household, junk accumulates to fill the space available for its storage.

Boultbee's Criterion:

If the converse of a statement is absurd, the original statement is an insult to the intelligence and should never have been said.

Boyle's Laws:

The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even in the wrong denomination.
When things are going well, someone will inevitably experiment detrimentally.
The deficiency will never show itself during the dry runs.
Information travels more surely to those with a lesser need to know.
An original idea can never emerge from committee in the original.
When the product is destined to fail, the delivery system will perform perfectly.
The crucial memorandum will be snared in the out-basket by the paper clip of the overlying correspondence and go to file.
Success can be insured only by devising a defense against failure of the contingency plan.
Performance is directly affected by the perversity of inanimate objects.
If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges.
The lagging activity in a project will invariably be found in the area where the highest overtime rates lie waiting.
Talent in staff work or sales will recurringly be interpreted as managerial ability.
The "think positive" leader tends to listen to his subordinates' premonitions only during the postmortems.
Clearly stated instructions will consistently produce multiple interpretations.
On successive charts of the same organization the number of boxes will never decrease.

Branch's First Law of Crisis:

The spirit of public service will rise, and the bureaucracy will multiply itself much faster, in time of grave national concern.

First Law of Bridge:

It's always the partner's fault.

Brien's First Law:

At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.

Broder's Law:

Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.

Brontosaurus Principle:

Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology; when this occurs, they are an endangered species.

Brooks's Law:

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Brooke's Law:

Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

Brownian Motion Rule of Bureacracies:

It is impossible to distinguish, from a distance, whether the bureaucrats associated with your project are simply sitting on their hands, or frantically trying to cover their asses.

Heisenberg's Addendum to Brownian Bureaucracy: If you observe a bureaucrat closely enough to make the distinction above, he will react to your observation by covering his ass.

(Jerry) Brown's Law:

Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available briefcases.

(Sam) Brown's Law:

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

(Tony) Brown's Law of Business Success:

Our customer's paperwork is profit. Our own paperwork is loss.

Bruce-Briggs's Law of Traffic:

At any level of traffic, any delay is intolerable.

Buchwald's Law:

As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse.

Bucy's Law:

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Bunuel's Law:

Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to efficiency.

Bureaucratic Cop-Out #1:

You should have seen it when *I* got it.

Burns's Balance:

If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good.

Bustlin' Billy's Bogus Beliefs:

The organization of any program reflects the organization of the people who develop it.
There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist.
Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
Capitalism can exist in one of only two states -- welfare or warfare.
I'd rather go whoring than warring.
History proves nothing.
There is nothing so unbecoming on the beach as a wet kilt.
A little humility is arrogance.
A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.

Butler's Law of Progress:

All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

Bye's First Law of Model Railroading:

Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.

Bye's Second Law of Model Railroading:

The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional to the decline of the prototype.

C

Cahn's Axiom (Allen's Axiom):

When all else fails, read the instructions.

Calkin's Law of Menu Language:

The number of adjectives and verbs that are added to the description of a menu item is in inverse proportion to the quality of the resulting dish.

John Cameron's Law:

No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered, take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.

Camp's Law:

A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not take place.

Campbell's Law:

Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.

Canada Bill Jones's Motto:

It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Canada Bill Jones's Supplement:

A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.

Cannon's Cogent Comment:

The leak in the roof is never in the same location as the drip.

Cannon's Comment:

If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

Carson's Law

It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.

Cartoon Laws

Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout- perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self- replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container.
For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.
Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.

Cavanaugh's Postulate:

All kookies are not in a jar.

Law of Character and Appearance:

People don't change; they only become more so.

Checkbook Balancer's Law:

In matters of dispute, the bank's balance is always smaller than yours.

Cheops's Law:

Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Chili Cook's Secret:

If your next pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something left out, rather than added.

Chisholm's First Law and Corollary: see Murphy's Third and Fifth Laws.

Chisholm's Second Law:

When things are going well, something will go wrong.

Corollaries:

When things just can't get any worse, they will.
Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

Chisholm's Third Law:

Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others.

Corollaries:

If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
If you do something which you are sure will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like it.
Procedures devised to implement the purpose won't quite work.
No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.

The First Discovery of Christmas Morning: Batteries not included.

Churchill's Commentary on Man:

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on as though nothing has happened.

Ciardi's Poetry Law:

Whenever in time, and wherever in the universe, any man speaks or writes in any detail about the technical management of a poem, the resulting irascibility of the reader's response is a constant.

Clarke's First Law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Corollary (Asimov): When the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right.

Clarke's Second Law:

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Clarke's Third Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas:

Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:

"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
"It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
"I said it was a good idea all along."

Clark's First Law of Relativity:

No matter how often you trade dinner or other invitations with in-laws, you will lose a small fortune in the exchange.

Corollary: Don't try it: you cannot drink enough of your in-laws' booze to get even before your liver fails.

Clark's Law:

It's always darkest just before the lights go out.

Cleveland's Highway Law:

Highways in the worst need of repair naturally have low traffic counts, which results in low priority for repair work.

Clopton's Law:

For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill.

Clyde's Law:

If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you.

Cohen's Law:

What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.

Cohen's Laws of Politics:

Law of Alienation:

Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.

Law of Ambition:

At any one time, thousands of borough councilmen, school board members, attorneys, and businessmen -- as well as congressmen, senators, and governors -- are dreaming of the White House, but few, if any of them, will make it.

Law of Attraction:

Power attracts people but it cannot hold them.

Law of Competition:

The more qualified candidates who are available, the more likely the compromise will be on the candidate whose main qualification is a nonthreatening incompetence.

Law of Inside Dope:

There are many inside dopes in politics and government.

Law of Lawmaking:

Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.

Law of Permanence:

Political power is as permanent as today's newspaper. Ten years from now, few will know or care who the most powerful man in any state was today.

Law of Secrecy:

The best way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide it.

Law of Wealth:

Victory goes to the candidate with the most accumulated or contributed wealth who has the financial resources to convince the middle class and poor that he will be on their side.

Law of Wisdom:

Wisdom is considered a sign of weakness by the powerful because a wise man can lead without power but only a powerful man can lead without wisdom.

Cohn's Law:

The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.

Cole's Law:

Thinly sliced cabbage.

Mr. Cole's Axiom:

The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.

Colson's Law:

If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

Comins's Law:

People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

Committee Rules:

Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.
Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others.
When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.

Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology:

No action is without side-effects.
Nothing ever goes away.
There is no free lunch.

Law of Computability

Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

Law of Computability Applied to Social Science:

If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

Laws of computer programming

Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any given program costs more and takes longer.
If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
Any program will expand to fill available memory.
The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain it.
Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.

First Maxim of Computers

To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.

Connolly's Law of Cost Control:

The price of any product produced for a government agency will be not less than the square of the initial Firm Fixed-Price Contract.

Connolly's Rule for Political Incumbents:

Short-term success with voters on any side of a given issue can be guaranteed by creating a long-term special study commission made up of at least three divergent interest groups.

Conrad's Conundrum

Technologie don't transfer.

Considine's Law:

Whenever one word or letter can change the entire meaning of a sentence, the probability of an error being made will be in direct proportion to the embarrassment it will cause.

Conway's Law #1

If you assign N persons to write a compiler you'll get a N-1 pass compiler.

Conway's Law #2

In every organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. -> This person must be fired.

Cooke's Law:

In any decisive situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision.

Cook's Law:

Much work, much food; little work, little food; no work, burial at sea.

Coolidge's Immutable Observation:

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

Cooper's Law:

All machines are amplifiers.

Cooper's Metalaw:

A proliferation of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes.

Mr. Cooper's Law:

If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it.

Corcoroni's Laws of Bus Transportation:

The bus that left the stop just before you got there is your bus.
The amount of time you have to wait for a bus is directly proportional to the inclemency of the weather.
All buses heading in the opposite direction drive off the face of the earth and never return.
The last rush-hour express bus to your neighborhood leaves five minutes before you get off work.
Bus schedules are arranged so your bus will arrive at the transfer point precisely one minute after the connecting bus has left.
Any bus that can be the wrong bus will be the wrong bus. All others are out of service or full.

Cornuelle's Law:

Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them.

Corry's Law:

Paper is always strongest at the perforations.

Courtois's Rule:

If people listened to themselves more often, they'd talk less.

Crane's Law (Friedman's Reiteration):

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ("tanstaafl")

Mark Miller's Exception to Crane's Law:

There are no "free lunches", but sometimes it costs more to collect money than to give away food.

Crane's Rule:

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.

Cripp's Law:

When traveling with children on one's holidays, at least one child of any number of children will request a rest room stop exactly halfway between any two given rest areas.

Cropp's Law:

The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office.

Culshaw's First Principle of Recorded Sound:

Anything, no matter how bad, will sound good if played back at a very high level for a short time.

Cutler Webster's Law:

There are two sides to every argument unless a man is personally involved, in which case there is only one.

Czecinski's Conclusion:

There is only one thing worse than dreaming you are at a conference and waking to find that you are at a conference, and that is the conference where you can't fall asleep.

D

Darrow's Observation:

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.

Darwin's Observation:

Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.

Dave's Law of Advice:

Those with the best advice offer no advice.

Dave's Rule of Street Survival:

Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.

Davidson's Maxim:

Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves.

Davis's Basic Law of Medicine:

Pills to be taken in twos always come out of the bottle in threes.

de la Lastra's Law

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.

de la Lastra's Corollary

After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been ommitted.

Deadlock's Law:

If the law-makers make a compromise, the place where it will be felt most is the taxpayer's pocket.

Corollary: The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.

Dean's Law of the District of Columbia:

Washington is a much better place if you are asking questions rather than answering them.

First Law of Debate:

Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

Decaprio's Rule

Everything takes more time and money.

Deitz's Law of Ego:

The fury engendered by the misspelling of a name in a column is in direct ratio to the obscurity of the mentionee.

Dennis's Principles of Management by Crisis:

To get action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted upon.
Management will select actions or events and convert them to crises. It will then over-react.
Management is incapable of recognizing a true crisis.
The squeaky hinge gets the oil.

Dhawan's Laws for the Non-Smoker:

The cigarette smoke always drifts in the direction of the non-smoker regardless of the direction of the breeze.
The amount of pleasure derived from a cigarette is directly proportional to the number of non-smokers in the vicinity.
A smoker is always attracted to the non-smoking section.
The life of a cigarette is directly proportional to the intensity of the protests from non-smokers.

Dieter's Law:

Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories.

Dijkstra's Prescription for Programming Inertia:

If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it.

Diogenes's First Dictum:

The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has to escape being taxed.

Diogenes's Second Dictum:

If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably will.

Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics:

Get elected.
Get re-elected.
Don't get mad -- get even.

Principle of Displaced Hassle:

To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem.

Donohue's Law:

Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

Donsen's Law:

The specialist learns more and more about less and less until, finally, he knows everything about nothing; whereas the generalist learns less and less about more and more until, finally, he knows nothing about everything.

Laws of Dormitory Life:

The amount of trash accumulated within the space occupied is exponentially proportional to the number of living bodies that enter and leave within any given amount of time.
Since no matter can be created or destroyed (excluding nuclear and cafeteria substances), as one attempts to remove unwanted material (i.e., trash) from one's living space, the remaining material mutates so as to occupy 30 to 50 percent more than its original volume.

Corollary: Dust breeds. The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's roommate will have the EARLIEST possible classes.

Corollary 1: One's roommate (who has early classes) has an alarm clock that is louder than God's own.

Corollary 2: When one has an early class, one's roommate will invariably enter the space late at night and suddenly become hyperactive, ill, violent, or all three.

Douglas's Law of Practical Aeronautics:

When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly.

Dow's Law:

In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion.

Dror's First Law:

While the difficulties and dangers of problems tend to increase at a geometric rate, the knowledge and manpower qualified to deal with these problems tend to increase linearly.

Dror's Second Law:

While human capacities to shape the environment, society, and human beings are rapidly increasing, policymaking capabilities to use those capacities remain the same.

Ducharme's Precept

Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

Dude's Law of Duality:

Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.

Dunne's Law:

The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.

Dunn's Discovery:

The shortest measurable interval of time is the time between the moment one puts a little extra aside for a sudden emergency and the arrival of that emergency.

Durant's Discovery:

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Durrell's Parameter:

The faster the plane, the narrower the seats.

Dyer's Law:

A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.

E

Economists' Laws:

What men learn from history is that men do not learn from history.
If on an actuarial basis there is a 50-50 chance that something will go wrong, it will actually go wrong nine times out of ten.

Edington's Theory:

The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.

Law of Editorial Correction:

Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.

Ehrlich's Rule:

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.

Ehrman's Commentary

Things will get worse before they will get better. Who said things would get better?

Eliot's Observation:

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Ellenberg's Theory:

One good turn gets most of the blanket.

Emerson's Insight:

That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

Old Engineer's Law:

The larger the project or job, the less time there is to do it.

The "Enough Already" Law:

The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.

Extended Epstein-Heisenberg Principle:

In an R & D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3 parameters can be defined simultaneously. The parameters are: task, time, and resources ($). 1) If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will cost. 2) If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is impossible to know what part of the R & D task will be performed. 3) If you are given a clearly defined R & D goal and a definte amount of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached. 4) If one is lucky enough to be able to accurately define all three parameters, then what one is dealing with is not in the realm of R & D.

Epstein's Law:

If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.

Ettorre's Observation:

The other line moves faster.

Corollary: Don't try to change lines. The other line -- the one you were in originally -- will then move faster.

Evans's Law:

Nothing worth a damn is ever done as a matter of principle. (If it is worth doing, it is done because it is worth doing. If it is not, it's done as a matter of principle.)

Evans's Law of Politics:

When team members are finally in a position to help the team, it turns out they have quit the team.

Evelyn's Rules for Bureaucratic Survival:

A bureaucrat's castle is his desk . . . and parking place. Proceed cautiously when changing either.
On the theory that one should never take anything for granted, follow up on everything, but especially those items varying from the norm. The greater the divergence from normal routine and/or the greater the number of offices potentially involved, the better the chance a never-to-be-discovered person will file the problem away in a drawer specifically designed for items requiring a decision.
Never say without qualification that your activity has sufficient space, money, staff, etc.
Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are there to serve you. "Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size and make demands on you out of proportion to their service, and in the end require more effort on your part than their service is worth.

Corollary: Support organizations can always prove success by showing service to someone . . . not necessarily you. Incompetents often hire able assistants.

Everitt's Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society. Only if someone or something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in a limited region. Nevertheless, this effort will stil result in an increase in the total confusion of society at large.

Eve's Discovery:

At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like best and that fits is the one not on sale.

Adam's Corollary: It's easy to tell when you've got a bargain -- it doesn't fit.

Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations:

Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.

First Law of Expert Advice:

Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut.

F

Faber's Laws:

If there isn't a law, there will be.
The number of errors in any piece of writing rises in proportion to the writer's reliance on secondary sources.

Fairfax's Law:

Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the desired result, are fair facts for the argument.

Falkland's Rule:

When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.

Farber's First Law:

Give him an inch and he'll screw you.

Farber's Second Law:

A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.

Farber's Third Law:

We're all going down the same road in different directions.

Farber's Fourth Law:

Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

Farnsdick's corollary

After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.

Farrow's Finding:

If God had intended for us to go to concerts, He would have given us tickets.

Law of Fashion:

Any given dress is: indecent 10 years before its time, daring 1 year before its time, chic in its time, dowdy 3 years after its time, hideous 20 years after its time, amusing 30 years after its time, romantic 100 years after its time, and beautiful 150 years after its time.

Rule of Feline Frustration:

When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

Fetridge's Law:

Important things that are supposed to happen do not happen, especially when people are looking.

Fett's Law of the Lab:

Never replicate a successful experiment.

The Fifth Rule:

You have taken yourself too seriously.

Finagle's Creed:

Science is Truth. Don't be misled by fact.

Finagle's First Law:

If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

Finagle's Second Law:

No matter what result is anticipated, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory.

Finagle's Third Law:

In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.

Corollaries:

No one whom you ask for help will see it.
Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will see it immediately.

Finagle's Fourth Law:

Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Finagle's Law According to Niven:

The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum.

Finagle's Laws of Information:

The information you have is not what you want.
The information you want is not what you need.
The information you need is not what you can obtain.
The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.

Finagle's Rules:

Ever since the first scientific experiment, man has been plagued by the increasing antagonism of nature. It seems only right that nature should be logical and neat, but experience has shown that this is not the case. A further series of rules has been formulated, designed to help man accept the pigheadedness of nature.

To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.
Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working.
Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.
In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.
When you don't know what you are doing, do it NEATLY.
Teamwork is essential; it allows you to blame someone else.
Always verify your witchcraft.
Be sure to obtain meteorological data before leaving on vacation.
Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.

Fishbein's Conclusion:

The tire is only flat on the bottom.

Fitz-Gibbon's Law:

Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth.

Flap's Law:

Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or completely mysterious.

Ford Pinto Rule:

Never buy a car that has a wick.

Fortis's Three Great Lies of Life:

Money isn't everything.
It's great to be a Negro.
I'm only going to put it in a little way.

Three Lies According to Playboy:

The check's in the mail.
Anticipation is half the fun.
I promise I won't come in your mouth.

Hare's Additional Lie: This will hurt me more than it hurts you.

Lowry's Additional Lie: I've never done this before.

Foster's Law:

If you cover a congressional committee on a regular basis, they will report the bill on your day off.

Fowler's Law:

In a bureaucracy, accomplishment is inversely proportional to the volume of paper used.

Fowler's Note:

The only imperfect thing in nature is the human race.

Frankel's Law:

Whatever happens in government could have happened differently, and it usually would have been better if it had.

Corollary: Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason.

Franklin's Observation:

He that lives upon Hope dies farting.

Franklin's Rule:

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.

Freeman's Law:

Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood.

Freemon's Rule:

Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a specialized field.

Fried's Law:

Ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their soundness and validity.

Laws of the Frisbee:

The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just beyond reach. (The technical term for this force is "car suck".)
The higher the quality of a catch or the comment it receives, the greater the probability of a crummy return throw. ("Good catch. . . Bad throw.")
One must never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than, "Watch this!" (Keep 'em guessing.)
The higher the costs of hitting any object, the greater the certainty it will be struck. (Remember: The disk is positive; cops and old ladies are clearly negative.)
The best catches are never seen. ("Did you see that?" "See what?")
The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a direction you did not want. (Wrong way = long way.)
The most powerful hex words in the sport are: "I really have this down -- watch." (Know it? Blow it!)
In any crowd of spectators at least one will suggest that razor blades could be attached to the disc. ("You could maim and kill with that thing.")
The greater your need to make a good catch, the greater the probability your partner will deliver his worst throw. (If you can't touch it, you can't trick it.)
The single most difficult move with a disc is to put it down. ("Just one more!")

Frisch's Law:

You cannot have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

Frothingham's Fallacy:

Time is money.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition:

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.

Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law:

It goes in -- it must come out.

Funkhouser's Law of the Power of the Press:

The quality of legislation passed to deal with a problem is inversely proportional to the volume of media clamor that brought it on.

Futility Factor (Carson's Consolation):

No experiment is ever a complete failure -- it can always serve as a bad example, or the exception that proves the rule (but only if it is the first experiment in the series).

Fyffe's Axiom:

The problem-solving process will always break down at the point at which it is possible to determine who caused the problem.

G

Gadarene Swine Law:

Merely because the group is in formation does not mean that the group is on the right course.

Galbraith's Law of Political Wisdom:

Anyone who says he isn't going to resign, four times, definitely will.

Galbraith's Law of Prominence:

Getting on the cover of "Time" guarantees the existence of opposition in the future.

Gallois's Revelation:

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled, and no one dares to criticize it.

Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand Fallacy.

Laws of Gardening:

Other people's tools work only in other people's yards.
Fancy gizmos don't work.
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
You get the most of what you need the least.

Gardner's Rule of Society:

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Gell-Mann's Dictum: Whatever isn't forbidden is required.

Corollary: If there's no reason why something shouldn't exist, then it must exist.

Law of Generalizations: All generalizations are false.

Gerrold's Fundamental Truth

It's a good thing money can't buy happiness. We couldn't stand the commercials.

Gerrold's Law

A little ignorance can go a long way.

(Lyall's Addendum: ...in the direction of maximum harm.)

Gerrold's Pronouncement

The difference between a politician and a snail is that a snail leaves its slime behind.

Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics

An object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction.
An object at rest will be in the wrong place.

Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:

An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
The energy required to change either one of the states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible.

Getty's Reminder:

The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

Gibb's Law

Infinity is one lawyer waiting for another.

Gilb's Laws of Unreliability (see also Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming):

Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.

Corollary: At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.

Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.
A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than of simplification, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.
Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the inherent unreliability of the system in which they are used.
The error-detection and correction capabilities of any system will serve as the key to understanding the type of errors which they cannot handle.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise -- which is impossible.
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or somebody insists on getting some useful work done.

Gilmer's Motto for Political Leadership:

Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you.

Ginsberg's Theorem (Generalized Laws of Thermodynamics):

You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't even quit the game.

Ehrman's Commentary on Ginberg's Theorem:

Things will get worse before they get better.
Who said things would get better?

Freeman's Commentary on Ginberg's Theorem:

Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit:

Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.

Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness:

The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual usefulness once bought and paid for.

Godin's Law:

Generalizedness of incompetence is directly proportional to highestness in hierarchy.

Golden Principle:

Nothing will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences:

Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Gold's Law

If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

(Bill) Gold's Law:

A column about errors will contain errors.

(Vic) Gold's Law:

The candidate who is expected to do well because of experience and reputation (Douglas, Nixon) must do BETTER than well, while the candidate expected to fare poorly (Lincoln, Kennedy) can put points on the media board simply by surviving.

Goldwyn's Law of Contracts:

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Golub's Laws of Computerdom:

Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.
The effort requires to correct course increases geometrically with time.
Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.

The 19 Rules for good Riting:

Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
Just between you and I, case is important.
Verbs has to agree with their subject.
Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped up into our language.
Don't use no double negatives.
A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
When dangling, don't use participles.
Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
And don't use conjunctions to start sentences.
Don't use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.
About sentence fragments.
In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep strings apart.
Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
Its important to use apostrophe's right.
Don't abbrev.
Check to see if you any words out.
In my opinion I think that the author when he is writing should not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words which he does not really need.
Then, of course, there's that old one: Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Goodfader's Law:

Under any system, a few sharpies will beat the rest of us.

Goodin's Law of Conversions

The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.

Gordon's First Law:

If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.

Professor Gordon's Rule of Evolving Bryophytic Systems:

While bryophytic plants are typically encountered in substrata of earthy or mineral matter in concreted state, discrete substrata elements occasionally display a roughly spherical configuration which, in presence of suitable gravitational and other effects, lends itself to combined translatory and rotational motion. One notices in such cases an absence of the otherwise typical accretion of bryophyta. We conclude therefore that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

Corollary (Rutgers): Generally the subjective value assignable to avian lifeforms, when encountered and considered within the confines of certain orders of woody plants lacking true meristematic dominance, as compared to a possible valuation of these same lifeforms when in the grasp of -- and subject to control by -- the manipulative bone/muscle/nerve complex typically terminating the forelimb of a member of the species homo sapiens (and possibly direct precursors thereof) is approximately five times ten to the minus first power.

Goulden's Axiom of the Bouncing Can:

If you drop a full can of beer, and remember to rap the top sharply with your knuckle prior to opening, the ensuing gush of foam will be between 89 and 94 percent of the volume that would splatter you if you didn't do a damned thing and went ahead and pulled the top immediately.

Goulden's Law of Jury Watching:

If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than 24 hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances when it votes guilty.

Graditor's Laws:

If it can break, it will, but only after the warranty expires.
A necessary item goes on sale only after you have purchased it at the regular price.

Gray's Law of Bilateral Asymmetry in Networks:

Information flows efficiently through organizations, except that bad news encounters high impedance in flowing upward.

Gray's Law of Programming:

n+1 trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as n trivial tasks.

Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law of Programming: n+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as n trivial tasks.

Rule of the Great:

When someone you greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep thoughts, they are probably thinking about lunch.

Greenberg's First Law of Influence:

Usefulness is inversely proportional to reputation for being useful.

Greener's Law:

Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.

Greenhaus's Summation:

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Gresham's Law:

Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters are never resolved.

Grosch's Law:

Computing power increases as the square of the cost. If you want to do it twice as cheaply, you have to do it four times slower.

Gross's Law:

When two people meet to decide how to spend a third person's money, fraud will result.

Grossman's Misquote

Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.

Gummidge's Law:

The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.

Gumperson's Law:

The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.

Corollaries:

After a salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you had before.
The more a recruit knows about a given subject, the better chance he has of being assigned to something else.
You can throw a burnt match out the window of your car and start a forest fire, but you can use two boxes of matches and a whole edition of the Sunday paper without being able to start a fire under the dry logs in your fireplace.
Children have more energy after a hard day of play than they do after a good night's sleep.
The person who buys the most raffle tickets has the least chance of winning.
Good parking places are always on the other side of the street.

Gumperson's Proof:

The most undesirable things are the most certain (death and taxes).

Guthman's Law of Media:

Thirty seconds on the evening news is worth a front page headline in every newspaper in the world.

H

Hacker's Law:

The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation or an organization to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.

Hacker's Law of Personnel:

Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task will invariably protest that more resources are needed.

Hagerty's Law:

If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich or famous or both.

Haldane's Law:

The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we CAN imagine.

Hale's Rule:

The sumptuousnss of a company's annual report is in inverse proportion to its profitability that year.

Hall's Law:

There is a statistical correlation between the number of initials in an Englishman's name and his social class (the upper class having significantly more than three names, while members of the lower class average 2.6).

Halpern's Observation:

That tendency to err that programmers have been noticed to share with other human beings has often been treated as if it were an awkwardness attendant upon programming's adolescence, which like acne would disappear with the craft's coming of age. It has proved otherwise.

Harden's Law:

Every time you come up with a terrific idea, you find that someone else thought of it first.

Hardin's Law:

You can never do merely one thing.

Harper's Magazine's Law:

You never find an article until you replace it.

Harris's Lament:

All the good ones are taken.

Harris's Law:

Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.

Harris's Restaurant Paradox:

One of the greatest unsolved riddles of restaurant eating is that the customer usually gets faster service when the retaurant is crowded than when it is half empty; it seems that the less the staff has to do, the slower they do it.

Harrison's Postulate

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

Hartig's How Is Good Old Bill? We're Divorced Law:

If there is a wrong thing to say, one will.

Hartig's Sleeve in the Cup, Thumb in the Butter Law:

When one is trying to be elegant and sophisticated, one won't.

Hartley's Law:

You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back you've got something.

Hartley's Second Law

Never go to bed with anybody crazier than you are.

Hartman's Automotive Laws:

Nothing minor ever happens to a car on the weekend.
Nothing minor ever happens to a car on a trip.
Nothing minor ever happens to a car.

Hart's Law:

In a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything.

Harvard Law:

Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, any experimental organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Harver's Law

A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.

Hawkin's Theory of Progress

Progress does not consist of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong.

Hein's Law:

Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.

Heller's Myths of Management:

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

Corollary (Johnson): Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within your organization.

Hellrung's Law

If you wait, it will go away. (Shevelson's Extension: ... having done its damage.)

[Grelb's Addition: ... if it was bad, it will be back.]

Hendrickson's Law:

If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings eventually become more important than the problem.

Herblock's Law:

If it's good, they'll stop making it.

Herrnstein's Law:

The total attention paid to an instructor is a constant regardless of the size of the class.

Hersh's Law:

Biochemistry expands to fill the space and time available for its completion and publication.

Hildebrand's Law:

The quality of a department is inversely proportional to the number of courses it lists in its catalogue.

Historian's Rule:

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Hoare's Law of Large Programs:

Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.

Hogg's Law of Station Wagons:

The amount of junk is in direct proportion to the amount of space available.

Baggage Corollary: If you go on a trip taking two bags with you, one containing everything you need for the trip and the other containing absolutely nothing, the second bag will be completely filled with junk acquired on the trip when you return.

Horner's Five Thumb Postulate:

Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Horngren's Observation: (generalized)

The real world is a special case.

Horowitz's Rule:

A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years.

Howard's First Law of Theater:

Use it.

Howe's Law:

Every man has a scheme that will not work.

Hull's Theorem:

The combined pull of several patrons is the sum of their separate pulls multiplied by the number of patrons.

Hull's Warning:

Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.

I

IBM Pollyanna Principle

Machines should work. People should think.

Idea Formula:

One man's brain plus one other will produce about one half as many ideas as one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as many.

The Ike Tautology:

Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before.

Corollary: Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Iles's Law:

There is an easier way to do it.

Corollaries:

When looking directly at the easier way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
Neither will Iles.

Imhoff's Law:

The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank -- the REALLY big chunks always rise to the top.

Index of Development:

The degree of a country's development is measured by the ratio of the price of an automobile to the cost of a haircut. The lower the ratio, the higher the degree of development.

Law of the Individual:

Nobody really cares or understands what anyone else is doing.

Laws of Institutional Food:

Everything is cold except what should be.
Everything, including the corn flakes, is greasy.

Law of Institutions:

The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.

Iron Law of Distribution:

Them what has -- gets. Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution:

Them what gets -- has.

Issawi's Law of Aggression:

At any given moment, a society contains a certain amount of accumulated and accruing aggressiveness. If more than 21 years elapse without this aggressiveness being directed outward, in a popular war against other countries, it turns inward, in social unrest, civil disturbances, and political disruption.

Issawi's Laws of Committo-Dynamics:

Comitas comitatum, omnia comitas.
The less you enjoy serving on committees, the more likely you are to be pressed to do so.

Issawi's Law of the Conservation of Evil:

The total amount of evil in any system remains constant. Hence, any diminution in one direction -- for instance, a reduction in poverty or unemployment -- is accompanied by an increase in another, e.g., crime or air pollution.

Issawi's Law of Consumption Patterns:

Other people's patterns of expenditure and consumption are highly irrational and slightly immoral.

Issawi's Law of Cynics:

Cynics are right nine times out of ten; what undoes them is their belief that they are right ten times out of ten.

Issawi's Law of Dogmatism:

When we call others dogmatic, what we really object to is their holding dogmas that are different from our own.

Issawi's Law of Estimation of Error:

Experts in advanced countries underestimate by a factor of 2 to 4 the ability of people in underdeveloped countries to do anything technical.

Issawi's Law of Frustration:

One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.

Issawi's Laws of Progress:

The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse.

The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.

The Dialectics of Progress: Direct action produces direct reaction.

The Pace of Progress: Society is a mule, not a car . . . If pressed too hard, it will kick and throw off its rider.

Issawi's Law of the Social Sciences:

By the time a social science theory is formulated in such a way that it can be tested, changing circumstances have already made it obsolete.

Issawi's Observation on the Consumption of Paper:

Each system has its own way of consuming vast amounts of paper: in socialist societies by filling large forms in quadruplicate, in capitalist societies by putting up huge posters and wrapping every article in four layers of cardboard.

First Postulate of Isomurphism

Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.

Italian Proverb:

She who is silent consents.

J

Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Governments:

No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

Jake's Law:

Anything hit with a big enough hammer will fall apart.

Jaroslovsky's Law:

The distance you have to park from your apartment increases in proportion to the weight of packages you are carrying.

Jay's Laws of Leadership:

Changing things is central to leadership, and changing them before anyone else is creativity.
To build something that endures, it is of the greatest important to have a long tenure in office -- to rule for many years. You can achieve a quick success in a year or two, but nearly all of the great tycoons have continued their building much longer.

Jenkinson's Law:

It won't work.

Jinny's Law:

There is no such thing as a short beer. (As in, "I'm going to stop off at Joe's for a short beer before on the way home.")

John's Axiom:

When your opponent is down, kick him.

John's Collateral Corollary:

In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it.

Johnson's First Law:

When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time.

Johnson's Second Law:

If, in the course of several months, only three worthwhile social events take place, they will all fall on the same evening.

Johnson's Third Law:

If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue containing the article, story, or installment you were most anxious to read.

Corollary: All of your friends either missed it, lost it, or threw it out.

Johnson's First Law of Auto Repair:

Any tool dropped while repairing an automobile will roll under the car to the vehicle's exact geographic center.

Johnson-Laird's Law:

Toothache tends to start on Saturday night.

Jones's Law:

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

Jones's Motto:

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

McClaughry's Codicil on Jones's Motto: To make an enemy, do someone a favor.

Jones's Principle:

Needs are a function of what other people have.

Juhani's Law:

The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it's compromising.

K

Kafka's Law:

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

Kamin's First Law:

All currencies will decrease in value and purchasing power over the long term, unless they are freely and fully convertable into gold and that gold is traded freely without restrictions of any kind.

Kamin's Second Law:

Threat of capital controls accelerates marginal capital outflows.

Kamin's Third Law:

Combined total taxation from all levels of government will always increase (until the government is replaced by war or revolution).

Kamin's Fourth Law:

Government inflation is always worse than statistics indicate: central bankers are biased toward inflation when the money unit is non-convertible, and without gold or silver backing.

Kamin's Fifth Law:

Purchasing power of currency is always lost far more rapidly than ever regained. (Those who expect even fluctuations in both directions play a losing game.)

Kamin's Sixth Law:

When attempting to predict and forecast macro-economic moves or economic legislation by a politician, never be misled by what he says; instead watch what he does.

Kamin's Seventh Law:

Politicians will always inflate when given the opportunity.

Kaplan's Law of the Instrument:

Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.

Katz's Law:

Men and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.

Katz's Maxims:

Where are the calculations that go with the calculated risk?
Inventing is easy for staff outfits. Stating a problem is much harder. Instead of stating problems, people like to pass out half- accurate statements together with half-available solutions which they can't finish and which they want you to finish.
Every organization is self-perpetuating. Don't ever ask an outfit to justify itself, or you'll be covered with facts, figures, and fancy. The criterion should rather be, "What will happen if the outfit stops doing what it's doing?" The value of an organization is more easily determined this way.
Try to find out who's doing the work, not who's writing about it, controlling it, or summarizing it.
Watch out for formal briefings; they often produce an avalanche (a high-level snow job of massive and overwhelming proportions).
The difficulty of the coordination task often blinds one to the fact that a fully coordinated piece of paper is not supposed to be either the major or the final product of the organization, but it often turns out that way.
Most organizations can't hold more than one idea at a time. Thus complementary ideas are always regarded as competetive. Further, like a quantized pendulum, an organization can jump from one extreme to the other, without ever going through the middle.
Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it being done, or is it something to be done? Reports are now written in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for novel uses of "contractor grammar", defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future.

Kelley's Law:

Last guys don't finish nice.

Kelly's Law:

An executive will always return to work from lunch early if no one takes him.

Kennedy's Law:

Excessive official restraints on information are inevitably self-defeating and productive of headaches for the officials concerned.

Kent's Law:

The only way a reporter should look at a politician is down.

Kerr-Martin Law:

In dealing with their OWN problems, faculty members are the most extreme conservatives.
In dealing with OTHER people's problems, they are the world's most extreme liberals.

Kettering's Laws:

If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it.
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

Key to Status:

S = D/K. S is the status of a person in an organization, D is the number of doors he must open to perform his job, and K is the number of keys he carries. A higher number denotes higher status. Thus the janitor needs to open 20 doors and has 20 keys (S = 1), a secretary has to open two doors with one key (S = 2), but the president never has to carry any keys since there is always someone around to open doors for him (with K = 0 and a high D, his S reaches infinity).

Kharasch's Institutional Imperative:

Every action or decision of an institution must be intended to keep the institution machinery working.

Corollary: The expert judgment of an institution, when the matter involved concerns continuation of the institution's operations, is totally predictable, and hence the finding is totally worthless.

Kirkland's Law:

The usefulness of any meeting is in inverse proportion to the attendance.

Kitman's Law:

On the TV screen, pure drivel tends to drive off ordinary drivel.

Klipstein's Lament

All warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.

Klipstein's Observation

Any product cut to length will be too short.

Klipstein's Law of Specifications:

In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.

Klipstein's Laws:

Applied to General Engineering:

A patent application will be preceded by one week by a similar application made by an independent worker.
Firmness of delivery dates is inversely proportional to the tightness of the schedule.
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
Any wire cut to length will be too short.

Applied to Prototyping and Production:

Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty to assemble.
If a project requires n components, there will be n-1 units in stock.
A motor will rotate in the wrong direction.
A failsafe circuit will destroy others.
A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.
A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.
A purchased component or instrument will meet its specs long enough, and only long enough, to pass incoming inspection.
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench.

Knight's Law

Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.

Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy:

Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.

Knowles's Law of Legislative Deliberation:

The length of debate varies inversely with the complexity of the issue.

Corollary: When the issue is trivial, and everyone understands it, debate is almost interminable.

Kohn's Second Law:

Any experiment is reproducible until another laboratory tries to repeat it.

Koppett's Law:

Whatever creates the greatest inconvenience for the largest number must happen.

Korman's conclusion

The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again.

Kristol's Law:

Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when you get what you want.

Krueger's Observation

A taxpayer is someone who does not have to take a civil service exam in order to work for the government.

L

Labor Law

A disagreeable law is its own reward.

First Law of Laboratory Work

Hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass.

LaCombe's Rule of Percentages

The incidence of anything worthwhile is either 15-25 percent or 80-90 percent.

Corollary (Dudenhoefer)

An answer of 50 percent will suffice for the 40-60 range.

Langin's Law

If things were left to chance, they'd be better.

Langsam's Law

Everything depends.

Lani's Principles of Economics

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
$100 placed at 7% interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 by which time it will be worth nothing.
In God we trust; all others pay cash.

La Rochefoucauld's Law

It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.

Larrimer's Constant

What this world needs is a damned good plague.

Law of Late-Comers

Those who have the shortest distance to travel invariably arrive latest.

Laura's Law

No child throws up in the bathroom.

Lawyer's Rule

When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names.

Leahy's Law

If a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right.

Corollary: Volume is a defense to error.

Le Chatelier's Law

If some stress is brought to bear on a system in equilibrium, the equilibrium is displaced in the direction which tends to undo the effect of the stress.

Lenin's Law

Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost.

Le Pelley's Law

The bigger the man, the less likely he is to object to caricature.

Les Miserables Metalaw

All laws, whether good, bad, or indifferent, must be obeyed to the letter.

Levy's Ten Laws of the Disillusionment of the True Liberal

Large numbers of things are determined, and therefore not subject to change.
Anticipated events never live up to expectations.
That segment of the community with which one has the greatest sympathy as a liberal inevitably turns out to be one of the most narrow-minded and bigoted segments of the community.
Always pray that your opposition be wicked. In wickedness there is a strong strain toward rationality. Therefore there is always the possibility, in theory, of handling the wicked by outthinking them.

Corollary 1: Good intentions randomize behavior.

Corollary 2: Good intentions are far more difficult to cope with than malicious intent.

Corollary 3: If good intentions are combined with stupidity, it is impossible to outthink them.

Corollary 4: Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied by the virtuous.

In unanimity there is cowardice and uncritical thinking.
To have a sense of humor is to be a tragic figure.
To know thyself is the ultimate form of aggression.
No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.
Only God can make a random selection.
Eternal boredom is the price of constant vigilance.

Lewis's Laws

People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.

Liebling's Law

If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior.

Lilly's Metalaw

All laws are simulations of reality.

Lloyd-Jones's Law of Leftovers:

The amount of litter on the street is proportional to the local rate of unemployment.

Law of Local Anesthesia

Never say "oops" in the operating room.

(F)law of Long-Range Planning

The longer ahead you plan a special event, and the more special it is, the more likely it is to go wrong.

Long's Notes

Always store beer in a dark place.
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- but which one? Differences are crucial.
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future.
A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.
It's better to copulate than never.
Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
Never appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry.
An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.
A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin; the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. It says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universe, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
Everybody lies about sex.
Rub her feet.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at once.
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss.
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills.
Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it's none of my business, but . . . " is to place a period after the word "but". Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being "frank".
Natural laws have no pity.
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting.
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament -- it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
"I came, I saw, SHE conquered." (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.)
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
Don't try to have the last word. You might get it.

Los Angeles Dodgers Law Wait till last year.

Law of the Lost Inch

In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:40 p.m. on Friday.

Corollaries:

Under the same conditions, if any minor dimensions are given to sixteenths of an inch, they cannot be totalled at all.
The correct total will become self-evident at 9:01 a.m. on Monday.

Lowrey's Law

If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Lowrey's Law of Expertise

Just when you get really good at something, you don't need to do it any more.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology

There's always one more bug.

Lubin's Law

If another scientist thought your research was more important than his, he would drop what he is doing and do what you are doing.

Luce's Law

No good deed goes unpunished.

Lucy's Law

The alternative to getting old is depressing.

Luten's Laws

When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another week when your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off the ground.

Lyall's Conjecture:

If a computer cable has one end, then it has another.

Lyall's Fundamental Observation:

The most important leg of a three legged stool is the one that's missing.

Lynch's Law:

When the going gets tough, everybody leaves.

Lyon's Law of Hesitation:

He who hesitates is last.

M

Madison's Question:

If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class?

Rev. Mahaffy's Observation:

There's no such thing as a large whiskey.

Maier's Law:

If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Corollaries:

The bigger the theory, the better.
The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. (Compensation Corollary)

Malek's Law:

Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

Malinowski's Law:

Looking from far above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic.

Malloy's Maxim:

The fact that monkeys have hands should give us pause.

The first Myth of Management

It exists.

Truths of Management:

Think before you act; it's not your money.
All good management is the expression of one great idea.
No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
Cash in must exceed cash out.
Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.

Truth 5.1 of Management:

Organizations always have too many managers.

Manly's Maxim:

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Mark's mark:

Love is a matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of physics.

Marshall's Generalized Iceberg Theorem:

Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen.

Marshall's Universal Laws of Perpetual Perceptual Obfuscation:

Nobody perceives anything with total accuracy.
No two people perceive the same thing identically.
Few perceive what difference it makes -- or care.

Martha's Maxim (and see Olum's Observation and Farrow's Finding):

If God had meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us narrower.

Dean Martin's Definition of Drunkenness:

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Martin-Berthelot Principle:

Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest amount of