Z
Zamboni's Parts Laws
1.A dropped part will always roll to the exact geographic center of the largest available object for it to
roll under.
2.The probability of the loss or breakage of any part is directly proportional to the difficulty of getting a
replacement part.
3.Irreplaceable parts will always break or be lost, and at the worst possible time.
4.Replaceable parts will only become available after an important deadline has passed.
5.Parts that are difficult to install will freely fall out on their own.
6.Parts that go in easily will be extremely hard to remove, and removal will be necessary to
accomplish the needed repair.
7.The part you will need will be the irreplaceable part you threw away last week because there is no
more serviceable equipment of that type around.
Zellar's Law
Every newspaper, no matter how tight the news hole, has room for a story on another newspaper
increasing its newsstand price.
Zimmerman's Law
Regardless of whether a mission expands or contracts, administrative overhead continues to grow
at a steady rate.
Zimmerman's Law of Complaints
Nobody notices when things go right.
Zusmann's Rule
A successful symposium depends on the ratio of meeting to eating.
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can. (Old worms never
die, they just worm their way into larger cans.)
Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labour
People are always available for work in the past tense.
Zymurgy's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Laws
When it rains, it pours.
Murphy's Laws Y
Y
Yapp's Basic Fact
If a thing cannot be fitted into something smaller than itself, some dope will do it.
Yolen's Guide for Self-Praise
Proclaim yourself "World Champ" of something -- tiddly-winks, rope- jumping, whatever -- send this
notice to newspapers, radio, TV, and wait for challengers to confront you. Avoid challenges as long
as possible, but continue to send news of your achievements to all media. Also, develop a
newsletter and letterhead for communications.
Young's Handy Guide to the Modern Sciences
If it is green or it wiggles -- it is Biology.
If it stinks -- it is Chemistry.
If it doesn't work -- it is Physics.
Young's Law
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Corollary - The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
Yapp's Basic Fact
If a thing cannot be fitted into something smaller than itself, some dope will do it.
Yolen's Guide for Self-Praise
Proclaim yourself "World Champ" of something -- tiddly-winks, rope- jumping, whatever -- send this
notice to newspapers, radio, TV, and wait for challengers to confront you. Avoid challenges as long
as possible, but continue to send news of your achievements to all media. Also, develop a
newsletter and letterhead for communications.
Young's Handy Guide to the Modern Sciences
If it is green or it wiggles -- it is Biology.
If it stinks -- it is Chemistry.
If it doesn't work -- it is Physics.
Young's Law
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Corollary - The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
Murphy's Laws W
W
Waddell's Law of Equipment Failure
A component's degree of reliability is directly proportional to its ease of accessibility (i.e., the
harder it is to get to, the more often it breaks down).
Waffle's Law
A professor's enthusiasm for teaching the introductory course varies inversely with the likelihood of
his having to do it.
Wain's Conclusion
The only people making money these days are the ones who sell computer paper.
Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution
Them what gets, has.
Waldo's Observation
One man's red tape is another man's system.
Walinsky's First Law of Political Campaigns
If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to
the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown.
Walinsky's Law
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.
Walker's Law
Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and
your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a
bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke.
Wallace's Observation
Everything is in a state of utter dishevelment.
Walters's Law of Management
If you're already in a hole, there's no use to continue digging.
Washington's Law
Space expands to house the people to perform the work that Congress creates.
The Watergate Principle
Government corruption is always reported in the past tense.
Watson's Law
The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons
watching it.
Watson's Law of Cleaning
If you start to clean your desk in the spare bedroom you will probably have to clean the garage to
find what you need to finish cleaning the desk.
Rule of the Way Out
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.
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.
Weaver's Law
When several reporters share a cab on an assignment, the reporter in the front seat pays for all.
Corollary (O'Doyle) - No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter who pays, each
puts the full fare on his own expense account.
Corollary (Germond) - When a group of newsmen go out to dinner together, the bill is to be
divided evenly among them, regardless of what each one eats and drinks.
Weber-Fechner Law
The least change in stimulus necessary to produce a perceptible change in response is
proportional to the stimulus already existing.
Weidner's Queries
1.The tide comes in and the tide goes out, and what have you got?
2.They say an elephant never forgets, but what's he got to remember?
Weiler's Law
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
Weinberg's First Law
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
Weinberg's Second Law
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came
along would destroy civilization.
Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand
Fallacy.
Weiner's Law of Libraries
There are no answers, only cross references.
Weisman's Law of Examinations
If you're confident after you've just finished an exam, it's because you don't know enough to know
better.
Wells's Law
A parade should have bands OR horses, not both.
Weskimen's Law
There's never time to do it right, but there is always time to d it over.
Westheimer's Law
A few months in the laboratory can save a few hours in the library.
Westheimer's Rule
To estimate the time it takes to do a task estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two
and change the unit of the measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one
hour task.
Wethern's Law
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
The Whispered Rule
People will believe anything if you whisper it.
White Flag Principle
A military disaster may produce a better postwar situation than victory.
White's Chappaquiddick Theorem
The sooner and in more detail you announce bad news, the better.
White's Observations of Committee Operation
1.People very rarely think in groups; they talk together, they exchange information, they adjudicate,
they make compromises. But they do not think; they do not create.
2.A really new idea affronts current agreement.
3.A meeting cannot be productive unless certain premises are so shared that they do not need to be
discussed, and the argument can be confined to areas of disagreement. But while this kind of
consensus makes a group more effective in its legitimate functions, it does not make the group a
creative vehicle -- it would not be a new idea if it didn't -- and the group, impelled as it is to agree, is
instinctively hostile to that which is divisive.
White's Statement
Don't lose heart...
Owen's Comment on White's Statement: ... they might want to cut it out...
Byrd's Addition to Owen's Comment on White's Statement: ... and they want to avoid a
lengthy search.
Whitehead's Law
The obvious answer is always overlooked.
Whole Picture Principle
Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own narrow endeavors that they cannot possibly see
the whole picture of anything, including their own research.
Corollary - The Director of Research should know as little as possible about the specific subject of
research he is administering.
Wicker's Law
Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some.
Wilcox's Law
A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.
Will's Rule of Informed Citizenship
If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys
precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead read selected portions of the Washington
telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word
"National".
Williams and Holland's Law
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
Willie Brown's Principle
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
Wilson's Law of Demographics
The public is not made up of people who get their names in the newspapers.
The First Law of Wing Walking
Never let hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else.
First Law of Wing-Walking
Never leave hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else.
Wingo's Axiom
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking.
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.
Witten's Law
Whenever you cut your fingernails, you will find a need for them an hour later.
Wober's SNIDE Rule (Satisfied Needs Incite Demand Excesses)
Ideal goals grow faster than the means of attaining new goals allow.
Wolf's Law (An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic World)
It isn't that things will necessarily go wrong (Murphy's Law), but rather that they will take so much
more time and effort than you think if they are not to go wrong.
Wolf's Law of Decision-Making
Major actions are rarely decided by more than four people. If you think a larger meeting you're
attending is really "hammering out" a decision, you're probably wrong. Either the decision was
agreed to by a smaller group before the meeting began, or the outcome of the larger meeting will be
modified later when three or four people get together.
Wolf's Law of History Lessons
Those who don't study the past will repeat its errors. Those who do study it will find OTHER ways to
err.
Wolf's Law of Management
The tasks to do immediately are the minor ones; otherwise, you'll forget them. The major ones are
often better to defer. They usually need more time for reflection. Besides, if you forget them, they'll
remind you.
Wolf's Law of Meetings
The only important result of a meeting is agreement about next steps.
Wolf's Law of Planning
A good place to start from is where you are.
Wolf's Law of Tactics
If you can't beat them, have them join you.
Woltman's Law
Never program and drink beer at the same time.
Woman's Equation
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is
not difficult.
Wood's Law
The more unworkable the urban plan, the greater the probability of implementation.
Woods's Incomplete Maxims
1.All's well that ends.
2.A penny saved is a penny.
3.Don't leave things unfinishe
Woods's Laws of Procrastination
1.Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
2.Procrastinate today! (Tomorrow may be too late.)
3.NOW is the time to do things later!
4.If at first you don't succeed, why try again?
Woods's Refutation of the First Law of Socio-Genetics
On the contrary, if you never procreate, neither will your kids.
Woodward's Law
A theory is better than an explanation.
Worker's Dilemma Law (Management's Put-Down Law)
1.No matter how much you do, you'll never do enough.
2.What you don't do is always more important than what you do do.
Wynne's Law
Negative slack tends to increase.
Wyszkowski's Theorem
Regardless of the units used by either the supplier or the customer, the manufacturer shall use his
own arbitrary units convertible to those of either the supplier or the customer only by means of weird
and unnatural conversion factors.
Wyszowski's Laws
1.No experiment is reproducible.
2.Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
3.Regardless of the units used by either the supplier or the customer, the manufacturer shall use his
own arbitrary units convertible to those of either the supplier or the customer only by means of weird
and unnatural conversion factors.
Waddell's Law of Equipment Failure
A component's degree of reliability is directly proportional to its ease of accessibility (i.e., the
harder it is to get to, the more often it breaks down).
Waffle's Law
A professor's enthusiasm for teaching the introductory course varies inversely with the likelihood of
his having to do it.
Wain's Conclusion
The only people making money these days are the ones who sell computer paper.
Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution
Them what gets, has.
Waldo's Observation
One man's red tape is another man's system.
Walinsky's First Law of Political Campaigns
If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to
the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown.
Walinsky's Law
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.
Walker's Law
Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and
your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a
bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke.
Wallace's Observation
Everything is in a state of utter dishevelment.
Walters's Law of Management
If you're already in a hole, there's no use to continue digging.
Washington's Law
Space expands to house the people to perform the work that Congress creates.
The Watergate Principle
Government corruption is always reported in the past tense.
Watson's Law
The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons
watching it.
Watson's Law of Cleaning
If you start to clean your desk in the spare bedroom you will probably have to clean the garage to
find what you need to finish cleaning the desk.
Rule of the Way Out
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.
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.
Weaver's Law
When several reporters share a cab on an assignment, the reporter in the front seat pays for all.
Corollary (O'Doyle) - No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter who pays, each
puts the full fare on his own expense account.
Corollary (Germond) - When a group of newsmen go out to dinner together, the bill is to be
divided evenly among them, regardless of what each one eats and drinks.
Weber-Fechner Law
The least change in stimulus necessary to produce a perceptible change in response is
proportional to the stimulus already existing.
Weidner's Queries
1.The tide comes in and the tide goes out, and what have you got?
2.They say an elephant never forgets, but what's he got to remember?
Weiler's Law
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
Weinberg's First Law
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
Weinberg's Second Law
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came
along would destroy civilization.
Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand
Fallacy.
Weiner's Law of Libraries
There are no answers, only cross references.
Weisman's Law of Examinations
If you're confident after you've just finished an exam, it's because you don't know enough to know
better.
Wells's Law
A parade should have bands OR horses, not both.
Weskimen's Law
There's never time to do it right, but there is always time to d it over.
Westheimer's Law
A few months in the laboratory can save a few hours in the library.
Westheimer's Rule
To estimate the time it takes to do a task estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two
and change the unit of the measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one
hour task.
Wethern's Law
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
The Whispered Rule
People will believe anything if you whisper it.
White Flag Principle
A military disaster may produce a better postwar situation than victory.
White's Chappaquiddick Theorem
The sooner and in more detail you announce bad news, the better.
White's Observations of Committee Operation
1.People very rarely think in groups; they talk together, they exchange information, they adjudicate,
they make compromises. But they do not think; they do not create.
2.A really new idea affronts current agreement.
3.A meeting cannot be productive unless certain premises are so shared that they do not need to be
discussed, and the argument can be confined to areas of disagreement. But while this kind of
consensus makes a group more effective in its legitimate functions, it does not make the group a
creative vehicle -- it would not be a new idea if it didn't -- and the group, impelled as it is to agree, is
instinctively hostile to that which is divisive.
White's Statement
Don't lose heart...
Owen's Comment on White's Statement: ... they might want to cut it out...
Byrd's Addition to Owen's Comment on White's Statement: ... and they want to avoid a
lengthy search.
Whitehead's Law
The obvious answer is always overlooked.
Whole Picture Principle
Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own narrow endeavors that they cannot possibly see
the whole picture of anything, including their own research.
Corollary - The Director of Research should know as little as possible about the specific subject of
research he is administering.
Wicker's Law
Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some.
Wilcox's Law
A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.
Will's Rule of Informed Citizenship
If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys
precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead read selected portions of the Washington
telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word
"National".
Williams and Holland's Law
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
Willie Brown's Principle
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
Wilson's Law of Demographics
The public is not made up of people who get their names in the newspapers.
The First Law of Wing Walking
Never let hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else.
First Law of Wing-Walking
Never leave hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else.
Wingo's Axiom
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking.
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.
Witten's Law
Whenever you cut your fingernails, you will find a need for them an hour later.
Wober's SNIDE Rule (Satisfied Needs Incite Demand Excesses)
Ideal goals grow faster than the means of attaining new goals allow.
Wolf's Law (An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic World)
It isn't that things will necessarily go wrong (Murphy's Law), but rather that they will take so much
more time and effort than you think if they are not to go wrong.
Wolf's Law of Decision-Making
Major actions are rarely decided by more than four people. If you think a larger meeting you're
attending is really "hammering out" a decision, you're probably wrong. Either the decision was
agreed to by a smaller group before the meeting began, or the outcome of the larger meeting will be
modified later when three or four people get together.
Wolf's Law of History Lessons
Those who don't study the past will repeat its errors. Those who do study it will find OTHER ways to
err.
Wolf's Law of Management
The tasks to do immediately are the minor ones; otherwise, you'll forget them. The major ones are
often better to defer. They usually need more time for reflection. Besides, if you forget them, they'll
remind you.
Wolf's Law of Meetings
The only important result of a meeting is agreement about next steps.
Wolf's Law of Planning
A good place to start from is where you are.
Wolf's Law of Tactics
If you can't beat them, have them join you.
Woltman's Law
Never program and drink beer at the same time.
Woman's Equation
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is
not difficult.
Wood's Law
The more unworkable the urban plan, the greater the probability of implementation.
Woods's Incomplete Maxims
1.All's well that ends.
2.A penny saved is a penny.
3.Don't leave things unfinishe
Woods's Laws of Procrastination
1.Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
2.Procrastinate today! (Tomorrow may be too late.)
3.NOW is the time to do things later!
4.If at first you don't succeed, why try again?
Woods's Refutation of the First Law of Socio-Genetics
On the contrary, if you never procreate, neither will your kids.
Woodward's Law
A theory is better than an explanation.
Worker's Dilemma Law (Management's Put-Down Law)
1.No matter how much you do, you'll never do enough.
2.What you don't do is always more important than what you do do.
Wynne's Law
Negative slack tends to increase.
Wyszkowski's Theorem
Regardless of the units used by either the supplier or the customer, the manufacturer shall use his
own arbitrary units convertible to those of either the supplier or the customer only by means of weird
and unnatural conversion factors.
Wyszowski's Laws
1.No experiment is reproducible.
2.Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
3.Regardless of the units used by either the supplier or the customer, the manufacturer shall use his
own arbitrary units convertible to those of either the supplier or the customer only by means of weird
and unnatural conversion factors.
Murphy's Laws V
V
Vail's Axiom
In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest hierarchical level.
Van Roy's Law
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
Vance's Rule of 2 1/2
Any military project will take twice as long as planned, cost twice as much, and produce only half of
what is wanted.
Law of Vertical Transportation
In a three story building served by one elevator, the elevator car will be on a floor where you are not.
Vique's Law
A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
Von Braun's Law of Gravity
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
Von Helsing's Theorem
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Vonnegut's Corollary
Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness goes right to the core.
Vail's Axiom
In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest hierarchical level.
Van Roy's Law
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
Vance's Rule of 2 1/2
Any military project will take twice as long as planned, cost twice as much, and produce only half of
what is wanted.
Law of Vertical Transportation
In a three story building served by one elevator, the elevator car will be on a floor where you are not.
Vique's Law
A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
Von Braun's Law of Gravity
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
Von Helsing's Theorem
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Vonnegut's Corollary
Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness goes right to the core.
Murphy's Laws U
U
Ubell's Law of Press Luncheons
At any public relations luncheon, the quality of the food is inversely related to the quality of the
information.
Uhlmann's Razor
When stupidity is a sufficient explanation, there is no need to have recourse to any other.
Corollary (Law of Historical Causation) - It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
The Ultimate Law
All general statements are false.
The Ultimate Principle
By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know what you will find.
The Ultimate Wisdom
Philosophers must ultimately find their true perfection in knowing all the follies of mankind by
introspection.
Umbrella Law
You will need three umbrellas: one to leave at the office, one to leave at home, and one to leave on
the train.
The Unapplicable Law
Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
Universal Field Theory of Perversity (Mule's Law)
The probability of an event's occurring varies directly with the perversity of the inanimate object
involved and inversely with the product of its desirability and the effort expended to produce it.
Universal Law
Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything that begins badly ends worse.
Unnamed Law
If it happens, it must be possible.
The Unspeakable Law
As soon as you mention something, if it's good, it goes away; if it's bad, it happens.
Ubell's Law of Press Luncheons
At any public relations luncheon, the quality of the food is inversely related to the quality of the
information.
Uhlmann's Razor
When stupidity is a sufficient explanation, there is no need to have recourse to any other.
Corollary (Law of Historical Causation) - It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
The Ultimate Law
All general statements are false.
The Ultimate Principle
By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know what you will find.
The Ultimate Wisdom
Philosophers must ultimately find their true perfection in knowing all the follies of mankind by
introspection.
Umbrella Law
You will need three umbrellas: one to leave at the office, one to leave at home, and one to leave on
the train.
The Unapplicable Law
Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
Universal Field Theory of Perversity (Mule's Law)
The probability of an event's occurring varies directly with the perversity of the inanimate object
involved and inversely with the product of its desirability and the effort expended to produce it.
Universal Law
Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything that begins badly ends worse.
Unnamed Law
If it happens, it must be possible.
The Unspeakable Law
As soon as you mention something, if it's good, it goes away; if it's bad, it happens.
Murphy's Laws T
T
Taxi Principle
Find out the cost before you get in.
Law of Teenage Opportunity
When opportunity knocks, you've got headphones on.
Law of Television
If you have only watched a TV series once, and you watch it again, it will be a rerun of the same
episode.
Terman's Law
There is no direct relationship between the quality of an educational program and its cost.
Terman's Law of Innovation
If you want a track team to win the high jump you find one person who can jump seven feet, not
seven people who can jump one foot.
Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law
It goes in -- it must come out.
Them what has -- gets. Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution
Them what gets -- has.
Theory of organizational deviance
Every organization has an allotted number of positions to be filled by incompetents.
Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering
1.In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.
2.Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.
3.In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated
as variables.
4.The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those
conditions encountered in actual service.
5.The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands the greatest chance of being omitted.
6.If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be unreasonable.
7.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction.
8.All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
9.Major changes in construction will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed.
10.Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
11.Interchangeable parts won't.
12.Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.5.
13.Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.25.
14.Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with the device will be promptly discarded by the
Receiving Department.
15.Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.
16.Service Conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.
17.If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault.
18.Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion in the field.
19.If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service experience at an ultimate value, an
ingenious idiot will promptly calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.
20.Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.
Therapist's Observation
It's easy to criticize paranoid people, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
Fourth Law of Thermodynamics
If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damned near zero.
Thinking Man's Tautology
If you think you're wrong, you're wrong.
Corollary - If you think you're wrong, you're right.
Thomas's Law of Consumerism
1.A one year warranty guarantees that the product will self-destruct on the 366th day.
2.All warranties expire upon payment of invoice.
3.The negative "Consumer Report" on the item you want to buy will come out one week after you've
purchased it.
Thoreau's Law
If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intention of doing you good, you should run for
your life.
Thoreau's Rule
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
Thoughts on Management
If everyone dislikes it, it must be looked into. If everyone likes it, it must be looked into.
Thoughts on Programming, Number 52
The user does not know what he wants until he sees what he gets.
The Three Laws of Robotics
1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with
the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Laws.
Three Lies According to Playboy
1.The check's in the mail.
2.Anticipation is half the fun.
3.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.
Thurber's Conclusion
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
Thwartz's Theorem of Low Profile
Negative expectation thwarts realization, and self-congratulation guarantees disaster. (Or, simply
put: If you think of it, it won't happen quite that way.)
Thyme's Law
Everything goes wrong at once.
Time Observation
Good times end too quickly. Bad times go on forever.
Tinker's Law
Nature abhors people.
Tipper's Law
Those who expect the biggest tips provide the worst service.
Titanic Coincidence
Most accidents in well-designed systems involve two or more events of low probability occurring in
the worst possible combination.
Titanics Generalized Iceberg Theorem
Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen.
Todd's Political Principles
1.No matter what they're telling you they're not telling you the whole truth.
2.No matter what they're talking about, they're talking about money.
3.The length of time it takes a bill to pass through the legislature is in inverse proportion to the number
of lobbying groups favoring it.
4.No politician talks about taxes during an election year.
5.Truth varies.
Law of the Too Solid Goof
In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking contain
the errors.
Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either.
Corollary2: Any nagging intruder, who
Torquemada's Law
When you are sure you're right, you have a moral duty to impose your will upon anyone who
disagrees with you.
Transcription Square Law
The number of errors made is equal to the sum of the squares employed.
First Law of Travel
No matter how many rooms there are in the motel, the fellow who starts up his car at five o'clock in
the morning is always parked under your window.
Travel Axiom
He travels fastest who travels alone... but he hasn't anything to do when he gets there.
Trial Lawyer's Dilemma
You can't guard against the arbitrary.
Trischmann's Paradox (Axiom of the Pipe)
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.
Law of Triviality
The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming (and see Peck's Programming Postulates)
1.Any running program is obsolete.
2.Any planned program costs more and takes longer.
3.Any useful program will have to be changed.
4.Any useless program will have to be documented.
5.Any program will expand to fill available memory.
Andi's Addendum - And beyond.
6.The size of a program expands to fill all available memory.
7.The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
8.The complexity of a program grows until it exceeds the capability of its maintainers.
9.Any system that relies on computer reliability is unreliable.
10.Any system that relies on human reliability is unreliable.
11.Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers
cannot write in English.
12.Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.
Troutman's Programming Postulates
1.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
2.Not until a program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be
discovered.
3.Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in proper order will be.
4.Interchangeable tapes won't.
5.If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method
to get bad data past it.
Truman's Law
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Trump's Quirk of Human Nature
Nobody loves a winner who wins all the time.
Truths of Management
1.Think before you act; it's not your money.
2.All good management is the expression of one great idea.
3.No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
4.Cash in must exceed cash out.
5.Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
Truth 5.1 of Management: Organizations always have too many managers.
6.Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
7.If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
8.If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
9.If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
10.The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.
Tuccille's First Law of Reality
Industry always moves in to fill an economic vacuum.
Turnauckas's Observation
To err is human; to really foul things up takes a computer.
Turner's Law
Nearly all prophecies made in public are wrong.
Twain's Rule
Only kings, editors, and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial "we".
Tylk's Law
Assumption is the mother of all foul-ups.
Taxi Principle
Find out the cost before you get in.
Law of Teenage Opportunity
When opportunity knocks, you've got headphones on.
Law of Television
If you have only watched a TV series once, and you watch it again, it will be a rerun of the same
episode.
Terman's Law
There is no direct relationship between the quality of an educational program and its cost.
Terman's Law of Innovation
If you want a track team to win the high jump you find one person who can jump seven feet, not
seven people who can jump one foot.
Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law
It goes in -- it must come out.
Them what has -- gets. Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution
Them what gets -- has.
Theory of organizational deviance
Every organization has an allotted number of positions to be filled by incompetents.
Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering
1.In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.
2.Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.
3.In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated
as variables.
4.The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those
conditions encountered in actual service.
5.The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands the greatest chance of being omitted.
6.If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be unreasonable.
7.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction.
8.All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
9.Major changes in construction will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed.
10.Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
11.Interchangeable parts won't.
12.Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.5.
13.Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.25.
14.Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with the device will be promptly discarded by the
Receiving Department.
15.Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.
16.Service Conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.
17.If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault.
18.Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion in the field.
19.If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service experience at an ultimate value, an
ingenious idiot will promptly calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.
20.Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.
Therapist's Observation
It's easy to criticize paranoid people, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
Fourth Law of Thermodynamics
If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damned near zero.
Thinking Man's Tautology
If you think you're wrong, you're wrong.
Corollary - If you think you're wrong, you're right.
Thomas's Law of Consumerism
1.A one year warranty guarantees that the product will self-destruct on the 366th day.
2.All warranties expire upon payment of invoice.
3.The negative "Consumer Report" on the item you want to buy will come out one week after you've
purchased it.
Thoreau's Law
If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intention of doing you good, you should run for
your life.
Thoreau's Rule
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
Thoughts on Management
If everyone dislikes it, it must be looked into. If everyone likes it, it must be looked into.
Thoughts on Programming, Number 52
The user does not know what he wants until he sees what he gets.
The Three Laws of Robotics
1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with
the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Laws.
Three Lies According to Playboy
1.The check's in the mail.
2.Anticipation is half the fun.
3.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.
Thurber's Conclusion
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
Thwartz's Theorem of Low Profile
Negative expectation thwarts realization, and self-congratulation guarantees disaster. (Or, simply
put: If you think of it, it won't happen quite that way.)
Thyme's Law
Everything goes wrong at once.
Time Observation
Good times end too quickly. Bad times go on forever.
Tinker's Law
Nature abhors people.
Tipper's Law
Those who expect the biggest tips provide the worst service.
Titanic Coincidence
Most accidents in well-designed systems involve two or more events of low probability occurring in
the worst possible combination.
Titanics Generalized Iceberg Theorem
Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen.
Todd's Political Principles
1.No matter what they're telling you they're not telling you the whole truth.
2.No matter what they're talking about, they're talking about money.
3.The length of time it takes a bill to pass through the legislature is in inverse proportion to the number
of lobbying groups favoring it.
4.No politician talks about taxes during an election year.
5.Truth varies.
Law of the Too Solid Goof
In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking contain
the errors.
Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either.
Corollary2: Any nagging intruder, who
Torquemada's Law
When you are sure you're right, you have a moral duty to impose your will upon anyone who
disagrees with you.
Transcription Square Law
The number of errors made is equal to the sum of the squares employed.
First Law of Travel
No matter how many rooms there are in the motel, the fellow who starts up his car at five o'clock in
the morning is always parked under your window.
Travel Axiom
He travels fastest who travels alone... but he hasn't anything to do when he gets there.
Trial Lawyer's Dilemma
You can't guard against the arbitrary.
Trischmann's Paradox (Axiom of the Pipe)
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.
Law of Triviality
The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming (and see Peck's Programming Postulates)
1.Any running program is obsolete.
2.Any planned program costs more and takes longer.
3.Any useful program will have to be changed.
4.Any useless program will have to be documented.
5.Any program will expand to fill available memory.
Andi's Addendum - And beyond.
6.The size of a program expands to fill all available memory.
7.The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
8.The complexity of a program grows until it exceeds the capability of its maintainers.
9.Any system that relies on computer reliability is unreliable.
10.Any system that relies on human reliability is unreliable.
11.Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers
cannot write in English.
12.Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.
Troutman's Programming Postulates
1.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
2.Not until a program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be
discovered.
3.Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in proper order will be.
4.Interchangeable tapes won't.
5.If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method
to get bad data past it.
Truman's Law
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Trump's Quirk of Human Nature
Nobody loves a winner who wins all the time.
Truths of Management
1.Think before you act; it's not your money.
2.All good management is the expression of one great idea.
3.No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
4.Cash in must exceed cash out.
5.Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
Truth 5.1 of Management: Organizations always have too many managers.
6.Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
7.If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
8.If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
9.If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
10.The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.
Tuccille's First Law of Reality
Industry always moves in to fill an economic vacuum.
Turnauckas's Observation
To err is human; to really foul things up takes a computer.
Turner's Law
Nearly all prophecies made in public are wrong.
Twain's Rule
Only kings, editors, and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial "we".
Tylk's Law
Assumption is the mother of all foul-ups.
Murphy's Laws S
S
Sadat's Reminder
Those who invented the law of supply and demand have no right to complain when this law works
against their interest.
Safeway Principles
The bag that breaks is the one with the eggs.
Salary Axiom
The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on
your take-home pay.
Sam Slick's Sophism
The number of salesmen that will call on you on any given day will be directly proportional to the
amount and urgency of the work you have to get done.
Corollary - None of them will be selling anything you want.
Sam's Axioms
1.Any line, however short, is still too long.
2.Work is the crabgrass of life, but money is the water that keeps it green.
Samuels Postulate
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
Sattinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Sattler's Law
There are 32 points to the compass, meaning that there are 32 directions in which a spoon can
squirt grapefruit; yet, the juice almost invariably flies straight into the human eye.
Sattlinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Saunders's Discovery
Laziness is the mother of nine inventions out of ten.
The Sausage Principle
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
Sayre's Third Law of Politics
Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.
Schenk's First Principle of Industrial Market Economics
Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry.
Schickel's TV Theorems
1.Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary
reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by
anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.
2.The only programs a grown-up can possibly stand are those intended for children. Or, more
properly, those that cater to those pre-adolescent fantasies that most have never abandoned.
Schmidt's Law
Never eat prunes when you're hungry.
Schmidt's Law (probably a different Schmidt)
If you mess with something long enough, it'll break.
Schmidt's Observation
All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.
Schmidt's Observations
Never eat prunes when you're hungry. All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a
thin person.
Schuckit's Law
All interference in human conduct has the potential for causing harm, no matter how innocuous the
procedure may be.
Schultze's Law
If you can't measure output, then you measure input.
Schumpeter's Observation of Scientific and Nonscientific Theories
Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions.
First Law of Science
You can observe a lot just by watching.
Rule of Scientific Endeavor
The simple explanation always follows the complex solution.
Scott's First Law
No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
Scott's Second Law
When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been correct in the first
place.
Corollary - After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original
quantity back into the equation.
Screwdriver Syndrome
Sometimes, where a complex problem can be illuminated by many tools, one can be forgiven for
applying the one he knows best.
Searchers Laws
1.You can always find what you're not looking for.
2.If a lost thing is found, something else will disappear.
3.If you file it, you'll know where it is but never need it. If you don't file it, you'll need it but never know
where it is.
4.The first place to look for anything is the last place you would expect to find it.
5.You will always find what you have lost in the last place you look for it.
Law of Secrecy
The best way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide it.
Segal's Law
A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure.
Law of Selective Gravity (the Buttered Side Down Law)
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Corollary (Klipstein) - The most delicate component will be the one to drop.
By the way- what happends if you glue the bread with the buttered side up to a cat's back and drop
it- will the cat float in the air? or vanish?
Jenning's Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the
carpet.
Sells's Law
The first sample is always the best.
Sevareid's Law
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Seymour's Principle of Investment
Never invest in anything that eats.
Shaffer's Law
The effectiveness of a politician varies in inverse proportion to his commitment to principle.
Shalit's Law
The intensity of movie publicity is in inverse ratio to the quality of the movie.
Shanahan's Law (O'Hanahan's Law)
The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people present.
Sharkey's Fourth Law of Motion
Passengers on elevators constantly rearrange their positions as people get on and off so there is at
all times an equal distance between all bodies.
Shaw's Laws of Meetings
1.In any dealings with a collective body of people, the people will always be more tacky than originally
expected.
2.The person with the least expertise has the most opinions.
3.Those most opposed to serving on committees are made chairmen.
Shaw's Principle
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Shelton's Laws of Pocket Calculators
1.Rechargeable batteries die at the most critical time of the most complex problem.
2.When a rechargeable battery starts to die in the middle of a complex calculation, and the user
attempts to connect house current, the calculator will clear itself.
3.The final answer will exceed the magnitude or precision or both of the calculator.
4.There are not enough storage registers to solve the problem.
5.The user will forget mathematics in proportion to the complexity of the calculator.
6.Thermal paper will run out before the calculation is complete.
Shirley's Law
Most people deserve each other. Forgive and remember.
Short's Quotations
1.Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche. A cliche is a sure and certain
way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last
one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time it was undoubtedly true.
2.Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at.
3.Malpractice makes malperfect.
4.Neurosis is a communicable disease.
5.The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.
6.Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how
can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is
most likely to be creamed?
7.A little ignorance can go a long way.
8.Learn to be sincere. Even if you have to fake it.
9.There is no such thing as an absolute truth -- that is absolutely true.
10.Understanding the laws of nature does not mean we are free from obeying them.
11.Entropy has us outnumbered.
12.The human race never solves any of its problems -- it only outlives them.
13.Hell hath no fury like a pacifist.
Simmon's Law
The desire for racial integration increases with the square of the distance from the actual event.
Simon's Law
Everything put together sooner or later falls apart.
Sinner's Law of Retaliation
Do whatever your enemies don't want you to do.
Sir Walter's Law
The tendency of smoke from a cigarette, barbecue, campfire, etc., To drift into a persons face is
directly proportional with that persons sensitivity to smoke.
Skinner's Constant (Flannegan's Finagling Factor)
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided into, added to, or subtracted from the answer you
got, gives you the answer you should have gotten.
Skole's Rule for Antique Dealers
Never simply say, "Sorry, we don't have what you're looking for." Always say, "Too bad, I just sold
one the other day."
Skydivers' Law of Hesitation
He who hesitates shall inherit the earth.
Law of Slide Presentation
In any slide presentation, at least one slide will be upside down or backwards, or both.
Smith's Principles of Bureaucratic Tinkertoys
1.Never use one word when a dozen will suffice.
2.If it can be understood, it's not finished yet.
3.Never be the first to do anything.
Snafu Equations
1.Given any problem containing n equations, there will be n+1 unknowns.
2.An object or bit of information most needed, will be least available.
3.In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution,
simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.
4.Badness comes in waves.
Snafu Equation No. 6
Badness comes in waves.
First Law of Socio-Economics
In a hierarchical system, the rate of pay for a given task increases in inverse ratio to the
unpleasantness and difficulty of the task.
First Law of Socio-Genetics
Celibacy is not hereditary.
Sociology's Iron Law of Oligarchy
In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will become the oligarchical
leaders and the others will follow.
Sodd's First Law
When a person attempts a task, he or she will be thwarted in that task by the unconscious
intervention of some other presence (animate or inanimate). Nevertheless, some tasks are
completed, since the intervening presence is itself attempting a task and is, of course, subject to
interference.
Sodd's Second Law
Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.
Corollary - Any system must be designed to withstand the worst possible set of circumstances.
Sodd's Other Law
The degree of failure is in direct proportion to the effort expended and to the need for success.
Law of Space And Time
The universe is not only weirder than we suppose. It's weirder than we can suppose.
The Spare Parts Principle
The accessibility, during recovery, of small parts which fall from the work bench, varies directly with
the size of the part, and inversely with its importance to the completion of the work underway.
Spark's Nine Rules for the Project Manager
1.Strive to look tremendously important.
2.Attempt to be seen with important people. Speak with authority; however, only expound on the
obvious and proven facts.
3.Don't engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask an irrelevant question and lean back with a
satisfied grin while your opponent tries to figure out what's going on -- then quickly change the
subject.
4.Listen intently while others are arguing the problem. Pounce on a trite statement and bury them with
it.
5.If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he
looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
6.Obtain a brilliant assignment, but keep out of sight and out of the limelight.
7.Walk at a fast pace when out of the office -- this keeps questions from subordinates and superiors
at a minimum.
8.Always keep the office door closed. This puts visitors on the defensive and also makes it look as if
you are always in an important conference.
9.Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into "Pearl Harbor File."
Spark's Ten Rules for the Project Manager
1.Strive to look tremendously important.
2.Attempt to be seen with important people.
3.Speak with authority; however, only expound on the obvious and proven facts.
4.Don't engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask an irrelevant question and lean back with a
satisfied grin while your opponent tries to figure out what's going on -- then quickly change the
subject.
5.Listen intently while others are arguing the problem. Pounce on a trite statement and bury them with
it.
6.If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he
looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
7.Obtain a brilliant assignment, but keep out of sight and out of the limelight.
8.Walk at a fast pace when out of the office -- this keeps questions from subordinates and superiors
at a minimum.
9.Always keep the office door closed. This puts visitors on the defensive and also makes it look as if
you are always in an important conference.
10.Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
Specht's Meta-Law
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you
can be booked.
Sport Car Laws
1.If you drive an expensive sport car and park it in a corner of the parking lot far from the entrance,
when you return the only other car in the parking lot will be parked next to yours and your car will
have a new dent in the door.
2.The little old lady who just ran her shopping cart into the door of your new Porsche will invariably say
"it's just a teeny dent," or "after all, it's only a car."
Law of Sports Contracts
The more money the free agent signs for, the less effective he is the following season.
Sprinkle's Law
Things always fall at right angles.
Stamp's Statistical Probability
The government is extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. These are raised to the
nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and
impressive displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are
first put down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases.
Stanley's Law of Taking Things Apart
When putting things back together again, there will always be at least one piece left over that will not
fit anywhere.
Stanley's Laws of Fat
Fat expands to fill any apparel worn.
Law of Status
Keep Up With The Fletcher's. You'll Never Make Enough To Keep Up With The Jones's.
Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy
Everyone should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink.
Stein's Law of Cards
Never play Poker with a player named Doc or Ace.
Stein's Maxim
The fact that you do not know the answer does not mean that someone else does.
Steinbeck's Law
When you need towns, they are very far apart.
Stenton's Law (Conrad's Conundrum)
Technology don't transfer.
Stephens's Soliloquy
Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.
Stewart's Law of Retroaction
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Stock Market Axiom
The public is always wrong.
Stock's Observation
You no sooner get your head above water than someone pulls your flippers off.
Stockbroker's Declaration
The market will rally from this or lower levels.
Stockmayer's Theorem
If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near impossible.
Stone's Law
If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue which contained the article or story or
installment you were most anxious to read.
Street's Laws of Mail Order
1.If you don't write to complain you'll never receive the order.
2.If you do write to complain, you'll receive the merchandise before your angry letter reaches the
company.
3.The most important item in an order will be back ordered.
Sturgeon's Law
Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crud.
Jones' browsing addendum to Sturgeon's Law
Of the ten percent, ninety percent are reprints.
Sueker's Note
If you need n items of anything, you will have n - 1 in stock.
Suhor's Law
A little ambiguity never hurt anyone.
Law of Superiority
The first example of superior principle is always inferior to the developed example of inferior
principle.
Law of Supermarkets
The item you wanted to price compare with other items is not priced.
Law of Superstition
It's bad luck to be superstititious.
Survival Formula for Public Office
1.Exploit the inevitable (which means, take credit for anything good which happens whether you had
anything to do with it or not).
2.Don't disturb the perimeter (meaning don't stir up a mess unless you can be sure of the result).
3.Stay in with the Outs (the Ins will make so many mistakes, you can't afford to alienate the Outs).
4.Don't permit yourself to get between a dog and a lamppost.
Sutton's Law
Go where the money is.
Sweeney's Law
The length of a progress report is inversely proportional to the amount of progress.
Swipple's Rule of Order
He who shouts loudest has the floor.
Sadat's Reminder
Those who invented the law of supply and demand have no right to complain when this law works
against their interest.
Safeway Principles
The bag that breaks is the one with the eggs.
Salary Axiom
The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on
your take-home pay.
Sam Slick's Sophism
The number of salesmen that will call on you on any given day will be directly proportional to the
amount and urgency of the work you have to get done.
Corollary - None of them will be selling anything you want.
Sam's Axioms
1.Any line, however short, is still too long.
2.Work is the crabgrass of life, but money is the water that keeps it green.
Samuels Postulate
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
Sattinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Sattler's Law
There are 32 points to the compass, meaning that there are 32 directions in which a spoon can
squirt grapefruit; yet, the juice almost invariably flies straight into the human eye.
Sattlinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Saunders's Discovery
Laziness is the mother of nine inventions out of ten.
The Sausage Principle
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
Sayre's Third Law of Politics
Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.
Schenk's First Principle of Industrial Market Economics
Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry.
Schickel's TV Theorems
1.Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary
reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by
anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.
2.The only programs a grown-up can possibly stand are those intended for children. Or, more
properly, those that cater to those pre-adolescent fantasies that most have never abandoned.
Schmidt's Law
Never eat prunes when you're hungry.
Schmidt's Law (probably a different Schmidt)
If you mess with something long enough, it'll break.
Schmidt's Observation
All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.
Schmidt's Observations
Never eat prunes when you're hungry. All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a
thin person.
Schuckit's Law
All interference in human conduct has the potential for causing harm, no matter how innocuous the
procedure may be.
Schultze's Law
If you can't measure output, then you measure input.
Schumpeter's Observation of Scientific and Nonscientific Theories
Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions.
First Law of Science
You can observe a lot just by watching.
Rule of Scientific Endeavor
The simple explanation always follows the complex solution.
Scott's First Law
No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
Scott's Second Law
When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been correct in the first
place.
Corollary - After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original
quantity back into the equation.
Screwdriver Syndrome
Sometimes, where a complex problem can be illuminated by many tools, one can be forgiven for
applying the one he knows best.
Searchers Laws
1.You can always find what you're not looking for.
2.If a lost thing is found, something else will disappear.
3.If you file it, you'll know where it is but never need it. If you don't file it, you'll need it but never know
where it is.
4.The first place to look for anything is the last place you would expect to find it.
5.You will always find what you have lost in the last place you look for it.
Law of Secrecy
The best way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide it.
Segal's Law
A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure.
Law of Selective Gravity (the Buttered Side Down Law)
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Corollary (Klipstein) - The most delicate component will be the one to drop.
By the way- what happends if you glue the bread with the buttered side up to a cat's back and drop
it- will the cat float in the air? or vanish?
Jenning's Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the
carpet.
Sells's Law
The first sample is always the best.
Sevareid's Law
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Seymour's Principle of Investment
Never invest in anything that eats.
Shaffer's Law
The effectiveness of a politician varies in inverse proportion to his commitment to principle.
Shalit's Law
The intensity of movie publicity is in inverse ratio to the quality of the movie.
Shanahan's Law (O'Hanahan's Law)
The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people present.
Sharkey's Fourth Law of Motion
Passengers on elevators constantly rearrange their positions as people get on and off so there is at
all times an equal distance between all bodies.
Shaw's Laws of Meetings
1.In any dealings with a collective body of people, the people will always be more tacky than originally
expected.
2.The person with the least expertise has the most opinions.
3.Those most opposed to serving on committees are made chairmen.
Shaw's Principle
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Shelton's Laws of Pocket Calculators
1.Rechargeable batteries die at the most critical time of the most complex problem.
2.When a rechargeable battery starts to die in the middle of a complex calculation, and the user
attempts to connect house current, the calculator will clear itself.
3.The final answer will exceed the magnitude or precision or both of the calculator.
4.There are not enough storage registers to solve the problem.
5.The user will forget mathematics in proportion to the complexity of the calculator.
6.Thermal paper will run out before the calculation is complete.
Shirley's Law
Most people deserve each other. Forgive and remember.
Short's Quotations
1.Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche. A cliche is a sure and certain
way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last
one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time it was undoubtedly true.
2.Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at.
3.Malpractice makes malperfect.
4.Neurosis is a communicable disease.
5.The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.
6.Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how
can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is
most likely to be creamed?
7.A little ignorance can go a long way.
8.Learn to be sincere. Even if you have to fake it.
9.There is no such thing as an absolute truth -- that is absolutely true.
10.Understanding the laws of nature does not mean we are free from obeying them.
11.Entropy has us outnumbered.
12.The human race never solves any of its problems -- it only outlives them.
13.Hell hath no fury like a pacifist.
Simmon's Law
The desire for racial integration increases with the square of the distance from the actual event.
Simon's Law
Everything put together sooner or later falls apart.
Sinner's Law of Retaliation
Do whatever your enemies don't want you to do.
Sir Walter's Law
The tendency of smoke from a cigarette, barbecue, campfire, etc., To drift into a persons face is
directly proportional with that persons sensitivity to smoke.
Skinner's Constant (Flannegan's Finagling Factor)
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided into, added to, or subtracted from the answer you
got, gives you the answer you should have gotten.
Skole's Rule for Antique Dealers
Never simply say, "Sorry, we don't have what you're looking for." Always say, "Too bad, I just sold
one the other day."
Skydivers' Law of Hesitation
He who hesitates shall inherit the earth.
Law of Slide Presentation
In any slide presentation, at least one slide will be upside down or backwards, or both.
Smith's Principles of Bureaucratic Tinkertoys
1.Never use one word when a dozen will suffice.
2.If it can be understood, it's not finished yet.
3.Never be the first to do anything.
Snafu Equations
1.Given any problem containing n equations, there will be n+1 unknowns.
2.An object or bit of information most needed, will be least available.
3.In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution,
simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.
4.Badness comes in waves.
Snafu Equation No. 6
Badness comes in waves.
First Law of Socio-Economics
In a hierarchical system, the rate of pay for a given task increases in inverse ratio to the
unpleasantness and difficulty of the task.
First Law of Socio-Genetics
Celibacy is not hereditary.
Sociology's Iron Law of Oligarchy
In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will become the oligarchical
leaders and the others will follow.
Sodd's First Law
When a person attempts a task, he or she will be thwarted in that task by the unconscious
intervention of some other presence (animate or inanimate). Nevertheless, some tasks are
completed, since the intervening presence is itself attempting a task and is, of course, subject to
interference.
Sodd's Second Law
Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.
Corollary - Any system must be designed to withstand the worst possible set of circumstances.
Sodd's Other Law
The degree of failure is in direct proportion to the effort expended and to the need for success.
Law of Space And Time
The universe is not only weirder than we suppose. It's weirder than we can suppose.
The Spare Parts Principle
The accessibility, during recovery, of small parts which fall from the work bench, varies directly with
the size of the part, and inversely with its importance to the completion of the work underway.
Spark's Nine Rules for the Project Manager
1.Strive to look tremendously important.
2.Attempt to be seen with important people. Speak with authority; however, only expound on the
obvious and proven facts.
3.Don't engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask an irrelevant question and lean back with a
satisfied grin while your opponent tries to figure out what's going on -- then quickly change the
subject.
4.Listen intently while others are arguing the problem. Pounce on a trite statement and bury them with
it.
5.If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he
looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
6.Obtain a brilliant assignment, but keep out of sight and out of the limelight.
7.Walk at a fast pace when out of the office -- this keeps questions from subordinates and superiors
at a minimum.
8.Always keep the office door closed. This puts visitors on the defensive and also makes it look as if
you are always in an important conference.
9.Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into "Pearl Harbor File."
Spark's Ten Rules for the Project Manager
1.Strive to look tremendously important.
2.Attempt to be seen with important people.
3.Speak with authority; however, only expound on the obvious and proven facts.
4.Don't engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask an irrelevant question and lean back with a
satisfied grin while your opponent tries to figure out what's going on -- then quickly change the
subject.
5.Listen intently while others are arguing the problem. Pounce on a trite statement and bury them with
it.
6.If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he
looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
7.Obtain a brilliant assignment, but keep out of sight and out of the limelight.
8.Walk at a fast pace when out of the office -- this keeps questions from subordinates and superiors
at a minimum.
9.Always keep the office door closed. This puts visitors on the defensive and also makes it look as if
you are always in an important conference.
10.Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
Specht's Meta-Law
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you
can be booked.
Sport Car Laws
1.If you drive an expensive sport car and park it in a corner of the parking lot far from the entrance,
when you return the only other car in the parking lot will be parked next to yours and your car will
have a new dent in the door.
2.The little old lady who just ran her shopping cart into the door of your new Porsche will invariably say
"it's just a teeny dent," or "after all, it's only a car."
Law of Sports Contracts
The more money the free agent signs for, the less effective he is the following season.
Sprinkle's Law
Things always fall at right angles.
Stamp's Statistical Probability
The government is extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. These are raised to the
nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and
impressive displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are
first put down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases.
Stanley's Law of Taking Things Apart
When putting things back together again, there will always be at least one piece left over that will not
fit anywhere.
Stanley's Laws of Fat
Fat expands to fill any apparel worn.
Law of Status
Keep Up With The Fletcher's. You'll Never Make Enough To Keep Up With The Jones's.
Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy
Everyone should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink.
Stein's Law of Cards
Never play Poker with a player named Doc or Ace.
Stein's Maxim
The fact that you do not know the answer does not mean that someone else does.
Steinbeck's Law
When you need towns, they are very far apart.
Stenton's Law (Conrad's Conundrum)
Technology don't transfer.
Stephens's Soliloquy
Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.
Stewart's Law of Retroaction
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Stock Market Axiom
The public is always wrong.
Stock's Observation
You no sooner get your head above water than someone pulls your flippers off.
Stockbroker's Declaration
The market will rally from this or lower levels.
Stockmayer's Theorem
If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near impossible.
Stone's Law
If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue which contained the article or story or
installment you were most anxious to read.
Street's Laws of Mail Order
1.If you don't write to complain you'll never receive the order.
2.If you do write to complain, you'll receive the merchandise before your angry letter reaches the
company.
3.The most important item in an order will be back ordered.
Sturgeon's Law
Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crud.
Jones' browsing addendum to Sturgeon's Law
Of the ten percent, ninety percent are reprints.
Sueker's Note
If you need n items of anything, you will have n - 1 in stock.
Suhor's Law
A little ambiguity never hurt anyone.
Law of Superiority
The first example of superior principle is always inferior to the developed example of inferior
principle.
Law of Supermarkets
The item you wanted to price compare with other items is not priced.
Law of Superstition
It's bad luck to be superstititious.
Survival Formula for Public Office
1.Exploit the inevitable (which means, take credit for anything good which happens whether you had
anything to do with it or not).
2.Don't disturb the perimeter (meaning don't stir up a mess unless you can be sure of the result).
3.Stay in with the Outs (the Ins will make so many mistakes, you can't afford to alienate the Outs).
4.Don't permit yourself to get between a dog and a lamppost.
Sutton's Law
Go where the money is.
Sweeney's Law
The length of a progress report is inversely proportional to the amount of progress.
Swipple's Rule of Order
He who shouts loudest has the floor.
Murphy's Laws R
R
Rule of Radio Reception
Your walkman radio won't pick up the station you want to hear most.
Rakove's Laws of Politics
1.The amount of effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal benefits
that he will derive from his party's victory.
2.The citizen is influenced by principle in direct proportion to his distance from the political situation.
Ralph's Observation
It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry.
Randolph's Cardinal Principle of Statecraft
Never needlessly disturb a thing at rest.
Rangnekar's Modified Rules Concerning Decisions
1.If you must make a decision, delay it.
2.If you can authorize someone else to avoid a decision, do so.
3.If you can form a committee, have them avoid the decision.
4.If you can otherwise avoid a decision, avoid it immediately.
Rapoport's Rule of the Roller-Skate Key
Certain items which are crucial to a given activity will show up with uncommon regularity until the day
when that activity is planned, at which point the item in question will disappear from the face of the
earth.
Raskin's Zero Law
The more zeros found in the price tag for a government program, the less Congressional scrutiny it
will receive.
Law of Raspberry Jam
The wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
Rather's Rule
In dealing with the press do yourself a favor. Stick with one of three responses: (a) I know and I can
tell you, (b) I know and I can't tell you, or (c) I don't know.
Rayburn's Rule
If you want to get along, go along.
RB's Five- Thumbs Postulate
Experience varies directly with the equipment ruined.
Rule of Reason
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
Law of Regressive Achievement
Last year's was always better.
Relativity For Children
Time moves slower in a fast moving vehicle.
Repairman's Laws
The probability of arriving at the job site without a needed tool or with the wrong hardware are
directly proportional with the square of the travel distance.
Corollary - You will always have what you need when the job is next to your shop.
Law of Reruns
If you have watched a TV series only once, and you watch it again, it will be a rerun of the same
episode.
Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Researchers Law
The closest library doesn't have the material you need.
Law of Restaurant Acoustics
In a restaurant with seats which are close to each other, one will always find the decibel level of the
nearest conversation to be inversely proportional to the quality of the thought going into it.
Law of Restitution
The time it takes to rectify a situation is inversely proportional to the time it took to do the damage.
Example: it takes longer to glue a vase together than to break one.
Rev. Mahaffy's Observation
There's no such thing as a large whiskey.
Law of Revelation
The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
(Fyfe's) First Law of Revision
Information necessitiating a change of design will be conveyed to the designer after - and only after
- the plans are complete. (Often called the Now They Tell Us' Law)
Corollary
In simple cases, presenting one obvious right way versus one obvious wrong way, it is often wiser to
choose the wrong way, so as to expedite subsequent revision.
(Fyfe's) Second Law of Revision
The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the further its influence will extend and the
more plans will have to be redrawn.
(Fyfe's) Third Law of Revision
If, when completion of a design is imminent, field dimensions are finally supplied as they actually
are, instead of as they were meant to be, it is always simpler to start over from scratch.
Corollary
It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will
make one for you.
(Fyfe's) Fourth Law of Revision
After painstaking and careful analysis of a sample, you are always told that it is the wrong sample
and doesn't apply to the problem.
Revolutionary Law
The sloppier the rebel uniform, the more likely the successful overthrow of the existing government.
Richard's Complementary Rules of Ownership
1.If you keep anything long enough you can throw it away.
2.If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no longer accessible.
Richman's Inevitables of Parenthood
1.Enough is never enough.
2.The sun always rises in the baby's bedroom window.
3.Birthday parties always end in tears.
4.Whenever you decide to take the kids home, it is always five minutes earlier that they break into
fights, tears, or hysteria.
Riddle's Constant
There are coexisting elements in frustration phenomena which separate expected results from
achieved results.
Riesman's Law
An inexorable upward movement leads administrators to higher salaries and narrower spans of
control.
Rigg's Hypothesis
Incompetence tends to increase with the level of work performed. And, naturally, the individual's staff
needs will increase as his level of incompetence increases.
Law of Road Construction
After large expenditures of federal, state, and county funds; after much confusion generated by
detours and road blocks; after greatly annoying the surrounding population with noise, dust, and
fumes -- the previously existing traffic jam is relocated by one-half mile.
Robert Lee's Truce
Judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.
Robert's Law of Space Sharing
The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's roommate will have the earliest possible
classes.
Robertson's Law
Everything happens at the same time with nothing in between.
The Rockefeller Principle
Never do anything you wouldn't be caught be dead doing.
Rodovic's Rule
In any organization, the potential is much greater for the subordinate to manage his superior than for
the superior to manage his subordinate.
Rodriguez's Observation
A consultant is someone who, when hired to find out what time it is, borrows your watch to find out.
Corollary (Martin) - If you hire a consultant to read your own watch to you, you got your money's
worth.
Rodriguez's Observations On Consultants
1.A consultant is someone who, when hired to find out what time it is, borrows your watch to find out.
2.A consultant is a fool with a briefcase more than two miles from home.
3.Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and sell it back to them.
Corollary - If you hire a consultant to read your own watch to you, you've gotten your money's worth.
Roemer's Law
The rate of hospital admissions responds to bed availability. If we insist on installing more beds,
they will tend to get filled.
Roger's Ratio
One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.
Rooster's First Law on School Affairs
The exam will ask the only topic you didn't study.
First corollary - The Bonus Rescue question is harder than the regular ones.
Rosenbaum's Rule
The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
Rosenfield's Regret
The most delicate component will be dropped.
Rosenstock-Huessy's Law of Technology
All technology expands the space, contracts the time, and destroys the working group.
(Charles) Ross's Law
Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.
(Al) Ross's Law
Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they always point upward from the floor -- especially in
the dark.
Rudin's Law
In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, most people will
choose the worse one possible.
The Fifth Rule
You have taken yourself too seriously.
Rules of Pratt
1.If a severe problem manifests itself, no solution is acceptable unless it is involved, expensive, and
time consuming.
2.Sufficient moneys to do the job correctly the first time are not available, however, ample funds are
much easier obtained for repeated revisions.
Rules regarding Fools
1.It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
2.The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader front.
3.A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.
4.Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which
either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
5.Build a system that only a fool can use and only a fool will use it.
6.It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
7.Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.
8.Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
9.There are four kinds of people: those who sit quietly and do nothing, those who talk about sitting
quietly and doing nothing, those who do things, and those who talk about doing things.
10.Fools rush in where fools have been before.
11.The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader front.
12.A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain: everything appears small to him
and he appears small to everybody.
Runamok's Law
There are four kinds of people: those who sit quietly and do nothing, those who talk about sitting
quietly and doing nothing, those who do things, and those who talk about doing things.
Rune's Rule
If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.
Runyon's Law
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
First Rule of Rural Mechanics
If it works, don't fix it.
Ryan's Application of Parkinson's Law
Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage.
Ryan's Law
Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.
Rule of Radio Reception
Your walkman radio won't pick up the station you want to hear most.
Rakove's Laws of Politics
1.The amount of effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal benefits
that he will derive from his party's victory.
2.The citizen is influenced by principle in direct proportion to his distance from the political situation.
Ralph's Observation
It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry.
Randolph's Cardinal Principle of Statecraft
Never needlessly disturb a thing at rest.
Rangnekar's Modified Rules Concerning Decisions
1.If you must make a decision, delay it.
2.If you can authorize someone else to avoid a decision, do so.
3.If you can form a committee, have them avoid the decision.
4.If you can otherwise avoid a decision, avoid it immediately.
Rapoport's Rule of the Roller-Skate Key
Certain items which are crucial to a given activity will show up with uncommon regularity until the day
when that activity is planned, at which point the item in question will disappear from the face of the
earth.
Raskin's Zero Law
The more zeros found in the price tag for a government program, the less Congressional scrutiny it
will receive.
Law of Raspberry Jam
The wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
Rather's Rule
In dealing with the press do yourself a favor. Stick with one of three responses: (a) I know and I can
tell you, (b) I know and I can't tell you, or (c) I don't know.
Rayburn's Rule
If you want to get along, go along.
RB's Five- Thumbs Postulate
Experience varies directly with the equipment ruined.
Rule of Reason
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
Law of Regressive Achievement
Last year's was always better.
Relativity For Children
Time moves slower in a fast moving vehicle.
Repairman's Laws
The probability of arriving at the job site without a needed tool or with the wrong hardware are
directly proportional with the square of the travel distance.
Corollary - You will always have what you need when the job is next to your shop.
Law of Reruns
If you have watched a TV series only once, and you watch it again, it will be a rerun of the same
episode.
Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Researchers Law
The closest library doesn't have the material you need.
Law of Restaurant Acoustics
In a restaurant with seats which are close to each other, one will always find the decibel level of the
nearest conversation to be inversely proportional to the quality of the thought going into it.
Law of Restitution
The time it takes to rectify a situation is inversely proportional to the time it took to do the damage.
Example: it takes longer to glue a vase together than to break one.
Rev. Mahaffy's Observation
There's no such thing as a large whiskey.
Law of Revelation
The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
(Fyfe's) First Law of Revision
Information necessitiating a change of design will be conveyed to the designer after - and only after
- the plans are complete. (Often called the Now They Tell Us' Law)
Corollary
In simple cases, presenting one obvious right way versus one obvious wrong way, it is often wiser to
choose the wrong way, so as to expedite subsequent revision.
(Fyfe's) Second Law of Revision
The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the further its influence will extend and the
more plans will have to be redrawn.
(Fyfe's) Third Law of Revision
If, when completion of a design is imminent, field dimensions are finally supplied as they actually
are, instead of as they were meant to be, it is always simpler to start over from scratch.
Corollary
It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will
make one for you.
(Fyfe's) Fourth Law of Revision
After painstaking and careful analysis of a sample, you are always told that it is the wrong sample
and doesn't apply to the problem.
Revolutionary Law
The sloppier the rebel uniform, the more likely the successful overthrow of the existing government.
Richard's Complementary Rules of Ownership
1.If you keep anything long enough you can throw it away.
2.If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no longer accessible.
Richman's Inevitables of Parenthood
1.Enough is never enough.
2.The sun always rises in the baby's bedroom window.
3.Birthday parties always end in tears.
4.Whenever you decide to take the kids home, it is always five minutes earlier that they break into
fights, tears, or hysteria.
Riddle's Constant
There are coexisting elements in frustration phenomena which separate expected results from
achieved results.
Riesman's Law
An inexorable upward movement leads administrators to higher salaries and narrower spans of
control.
Rigg's Hypothesis
Incompetence tends to increase with the level of work performed. And, naturally, the individual's staff
needs will increase as his level of incompetence increases.
Law of Road Construction
After large expenditures of federal, state, and county funds; after much confusion generated by
detours and road blocks; after greatly annoying the surrounding population with noise, dust, and
fumes -- the previously existing traffic jam is relocated by one-half mile.
Robert Lee's Truce
Judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.
Robert's Law of Space Sharing
The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's roommate will have the earliest possible
classes.
Robertson's Law
Everything happens at the same time with nothing in between.
The Rockefeller Principle
Never do anything you wouldn't be caught be dead doing.
Rodovic's Rule
In any organization, the potential is much greater for the subordinate to manage his superior than for
the superior to manage his subordinate.
Rodriguez's Observation
A consultant is someone who, when hired to find out what time it is, borrows your watch to find out.
Corollary (Martin) - If you hire a consultant to read your own watch to you, you got your money's
worth.
Rodriguez's Observations On Consultants
1.A consultant is someone who, when hired to find out what time it is, borrows your watch to find out.
2.A consultant is a fool with a briefcase more than two miles from home.
3.Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and sell it back to them.
Corollary - If you hire a consultant to read your own watch to you, you've gotten your money's worth.
Roemer's Law
The rate of hospital admissions responds to bed availability. If we insist on installing more beds,
they will tend to get filled.
Roger's Ratio
One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.
Rooster's First Law on School Affairs
The exam will ask the only topic you didn't study.
First corollary - The Bonus Rescue question is harder than the regular ones.
Rosenbaum's Rule
The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
Rosenfield's Regret
The most delicate component will be dropped.
Rosenstock-Huessy's Law of Technology
All technology expands the space, contracts the time, and destroys the working group.
(Charles) Ross's Law
Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.
(Al) Ross's Law
Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they always point upward from the floor -- especially in
the dark.
Rudin's Law
In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, most people will
choose the worse one possible.
The Fifth Rule
You have taken yourself too seriously.
Rules of Pratt
1.If a severe problem manifests itself, no solution is acceptable unless it is involved, expensive, and
time consuming.
2.Sufficient moneys to do the job correctly the first time are not available, however, ample funds are
much easier obtained for repeated revisions.
Rules regarding Fools
1.It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
2.The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader front.
3.A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.
4.Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which
either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
5.Build a system that only a fool can use and only a fool will use it.
6.It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
7.Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.
8.Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
9.There are four kinds of people: those who sit quietly and do nothing, those who talk about sitting
quietly and doing nothing, those who do things, and those who talk about doing things.
10.Fools rush in where fools have been before.
11.The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader front.
12.A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain: everything appears small to him
and he appears small to everybody.
Runamok's Law
There are four kinds of people: those who sit quietly and do nothing, those who talk about sitting
quietly and doing nothing, those who do things, and those who talk about doing things.
Rune's Rule
If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.
Runyon's Law
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
First Rule of Rural Mechanics
If it works, don't fix it.
Ryan's Application of Parkinson's Law
Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage.
Ryan's Law
Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.
Murphy's Laws Q
Q
Q's Law
No matter what stage of completion one reaches in a North Sea (oil) field, the cost of the remainder
of the project remains the same.
The Queue Principal
The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are in the wrong line.
Quigley's Law of Highway Driving
When travelling down the freeway, the first bug to hit a clean windshield will always land directly in
front of the driver's face.
Q's Law
No matter what stage of completion one reaches in a North Sea (oil) field, the cost of the remainder
of the project remains the same.
The Queue Principal
The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are in the wrong line.
Quigley's Law of Highway Driving
When travelling down the freeway, the first bug to hit a clean windshield will always land directly in
front of the driver's face.
Murphy's Laws P
P
Panic Instruction
When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
Paperboy's rule of Weather
No matter how clear the skies are, a thunderstorm will move in 5 minutes after the papers are
delivered.
Paradox of Selective Equality
All thing being equal, all things are never equal.
Paradoxical Law
Doing it the hard way is always easier.
Pardo's Postulates
1.Anything good is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
2.The three faithful things in life are money, a dog, and an old woman.
3.Don't care if you're rich or not, as long as you live comfortably and can have everything you want.
Pareto's Law (The 20/80 Law)
20% of the customers account for 80% of the turnover, 20% of the components account for 80% of
the cost, and so forth.
Parker's Law of Political Statements
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility, and vice versa.
Parker's Prophesies
1.If anything is used to it's full potential, it will break.
2.Anything labeled "new" and/or "improved" isn't.
3.If an item is advertised as "under $50.00," you can bet it's not $19.95.
4.The one you want is never the one on sale.
5.If you like it, they don't have it in your size.
6.You never want the one you can afford.
Parker's Rule of Parliamentary Procedure
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
Parker's Third Rule of Tech Support
If you can't navigate a one-level, five-item phone tree, you didn't need a computer anyway.
Parkin's Law of Irritation
Anything that happens enough times to irritate you will happen at least once more.
Parking Laws
Parking place Defined: A huge space large enough for six cars on the other side of the street.
Axioms:
1.As soon as you have made your U Turn to take one of the places six cars come along and
take all of them all.
2.If you have to park six blocks away and walk back to the building, you will find two new parking
spaces right in front of the building entrance when you get there.
3.If only two cars are left in a huge parking lot, one will be blocking the other.
Parkinson's Axioms
1.An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.
2.Officials make work for each other.
Parkinson's Law of 1000
An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so
much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.
Parkinson's Law of Delay
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Parkinson's Law of Medical Research
Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.
Parkinson's Law of the Telephone
The effectiveness of a telephone conversation is in inverse proportion to the time spent on it.
Parkinson's Laws
1.Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived
importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion.
2.Expenditures rise to meet income.
3.Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.
4.The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to
be done.
5.If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
6.The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.
Parkinson's Principle of Non-Origination
It is the essence of grantsmanship to persuade the Foundation executives that it was THEY who
suggested the research project and that you were a belated convert, agreeing reluctantly to all they
had proposed.
Parson's Laws
1.If you break a cup or plate, it will not be the one that was already chipped or cracked.
2.A place you want to get to is always just off the edge of the map you happen to have handy.
3.A meeting lasts at least 1 1/2 hours however short the agenda.
The Party Law
The more food you prepare, the less your guests eat.
Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem
Nothing is ultimate.
Pastore's Truths
1.Even paranoids have enemies.
2.Most jobs are marginally better than daytime TV.
3.On alcohol: four is one more than more than enough.
Patrick's Theorem
If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.
Patton's Law
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
Paturi Principle
Success is the result of behavior that completely contradicts the usual expectations about the
behavior of a successful person.
Corollary - The amount of success is in inverse proportion to the effort involved in attaining it.
Paul Principle
People become progressively less competent for jobs they once were well equipped to handle.
Paul's Law (of Drinking)
You can't fall off the floor.
Paul's Law of Group Insurance
The illness you come down with is the one ailment not covered under your insurance policy.
Paulg's Law
In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.
Peck's Programming Postulates (Philosophic Engineering applied to programming)
1.In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually do so.
2.Not until the program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be
discovered.
3.Any constants, limits, or timing formulas that appear in the computer manufacturer's literature should
be treated as variables.
4.The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the greatest chance of being left out of the calling
sequence.
5.If only one compiler can be secured for a piece of hardware, the compilation times will be
exorbitant.
6.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
7.Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be.
8.Interchangeable tapes won't.
9.If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault.
10.If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method
to get bad data past it.
11.Duplicated object decks which test in identical fashion will not give identical results at remote sites.
12.Manufacturer's hardware and software support ceases with payment for the computer.
Peckham's Law (Beckhap's Law?)
Beauty times brains equals a constant.
Peer's Law
The solution to a problem changes the problem.
Perelman's Point
There is nothing like a good painstaking survey full of decimal points and guarded generalizations
to put a glaze like a Sung vase on your eyeball.
Perkin's Postulate
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
Perlsweig's Law
People who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People who can most afford to pay rent, build up
equity.
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.
Persig's Postulate
The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.
The Perverse Principles of Temperature Regulation
1.The air conditioner in your car will break down on the hottest day of the year, the heater will be stuck
on "High", and all of the windows will be seized shut.
2.The heater will break down on the coldest day of the year, the air conditioner will be stuck on "High"
and the windows will be seized open.
Law of the Perversity of Nature
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Perversity of Nature Law
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Peter Principle
In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee tends to rise to his level of
incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties.
Corollaries:
1.Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
2.Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of
incompetence.
3.If at first you don't succeed, try something else.
Peter's Hidden Postulate According to Godin
Every employee begins at his level of competence.
Peter's Inversion
Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficiency.
Peter's Law of Evolution
Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.
Peter's Law of Substitution
Look after the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves.
Peter's Observation
Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.
Peter's Paradox
Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their colleagues.
Peter's Perfect People Palliative
Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some (perhaps) not-so-good qualities. In considering
our fellow people we should remember their good qualities and realize that their faults only prove
that they are, after all, human. We should refrain from making harsh judgments of people just
because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.
Peter's Placebo
An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Peter's Prognosis
Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will disappear.
Peter's Rule for Creative Incompetence
Create the impression that you have already reached your level of incompetence.
Peter's Theorem
Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.
Peters principal
1.In any hierarchy, each individual rises to his own level of incompetence, and then remains there.
2.There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over.
3.People specialize in their area of greatest weakness.
4.Every organization has an allotted number of positions to be filled by incompetents.
Peterson's Law
History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or, expressed
differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt.
Phases of a Project
1.Exultation.
2.Disenchantment.
3.Confusion.
4.Search for the Guilty.
5.Punishment of the Innocent.
6.Distinction for the Uninvolved.
Phelps's Law of Retributive Statistics
An unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally long
sequence of trouble.
Phelps's Laws of Renovation
1.Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice as much and take three times as long as
originally estimated.
2.Any plumbing pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent condition;
those you decide to leave in place will be rotten.
Phillip's Principle of Observable Repairs
1.The number of witnesses available is inversely proportional to the skill you demonstrate.
2.There will never be anyone around to see you do something brilliant
3.When you really screw up, you will get network coverage with a 40 share.
4.The only thing you didn't check for a malfunction, will be the source of the problem, but you won't find
it until you are called back.
Phone Booth Rule
A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.
The Third Law of Photography
If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the
darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.
Second Law of Physics
You cant push on a rope.
Pierce's Law
In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret, misconstruct, misprint, or not evaluate
any math or subroutines or fail to print any output on at least the first run through.
Corollary to Pierce's Law
When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the program will not yield the
desired output.
Pierson's Law
If you're coasting, you're going downhill.
Pike Law of Punditry
The successful pundit is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.
Pineapple Principle
The best parts of anything are always impossible to remove from the worst parts.
Pitfall of Genius
No boss will keep an employee who is right all the time.
Plotnick's Law
The time of departure will be delayed by the square of the number of people involved.
The Point of No Return Law
The light at the end of the tunnel could turn out to be the headlight of an oncoming train.
Political Axioms
1.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.
2.Politicians will always inflate when given the opportunity.
Law of Political Erosion
Once the erosion of power begins, it has a momentum all its own.
Political Postulate
Formation of a party signals the dissolution of the movement.
Politicians' Rules
1.When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them.
2.When the polls are overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress the
volatility of public opinion.
3.When the polls are slightly unfavorable, play for sympathy as a struggling underdog.
4.When too close to call, be surprised at your own strength.
The Pollyanna Paradox
Every day, in every way, things get better and better; then worse again in the evening.
Pope's Law of Retroactivity
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Postal Postulate
The announcement of the one event you most wanted to attend will arrive in the mail the day after the
it has taken place.
First Postulate of Isomurphism
Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.
Potter's Law
The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.
Poulsen's Law
When anything is used to its full potential, it will break.
Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules
Everything costs more and takes longer.
Powell's Law
Never tell them what you wouldn't do.
Pragmatic Principal
Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
Law of Predictive Action
The second most powerful phrase in the world is "Watch this!" The most powerful phrase is "Oh
yeah? Watch this!"
Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning
It's on the other side.
Price's Law of Politics
It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home.
Price's Law of Science
Scientists who dislike the restraints of highly organized research like to remark that a truly great
research worker needs only three pieces of equipment -- a pencil, a piece of paper, and a brain.
But they quote this maxim more often at academic banquets than at budget hearings.
The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices
The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those
functions.
Principle of Displaced Hassle
To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem.
Principles of success
1.Everyone has a scheme for getting rich that will not work.
2.When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.
3.Whatever you have done is never a complete failure. It can always serve as a bad example.
4.When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.
5.In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
6.It's a simple task to make things complex, but a complex task to make them simple.
7.If you try to please everybody, nobody will like it.
Law of Probability
Random events tend to occur in groups:
Law of Probable Dispersal
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. (also known as the How Come It All Landed On
Me Law)
Law of problems
1.If one views the problem closely enough, he will recognize himself as part of the problem.
2.Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
Corollary - Every solution breeds new problems.
Productivity Equation
The productivity, P, of a group of people is:
P = N x T x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) )
where N is the number of people in the group and T is the number of hours in a work period.
Professional's Law
Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you're not.
Professor Corey's Law
The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the
general public.
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.
Rutger's Corollary - 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.
Profundo's Laws on Staffing
1.The number of customers that visit your shop is inversely proportional to the number of employees
you have to wait on them.
2.When your entire staff is available no one will come.
3.When you are there alone, everyone will come and they will be impatient.
First Law of Project Management
Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarraament of estimating the corresponding
costs.
Sixth Law of Project Management
No matter what stage of completion one reaches, the cost of the remainder of the project remains
constant.
Project scheduling "99" rule
The first 90 percent of the task takes 10 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90
percent.
Proverbial Law
For every proverb that so confidently asserts its little bit of wisdom, there is usually an equal and
opposite proverb that contradicts it.
Psychiatrist's At Home Test
One out of four people is mentally ill. Check three friends; If they're O.K. it must be you.
Public Relations Client Turnover Law
The minute you sign a client is the minute you start to lose him.
First Rule of Public Speaking
Nice guys finish fast.
Law of Public Transit
If you start walking, the first bus will come precisely when you are halfway between stops.
Public Transit Definitions
1.A bus is a vehicle in a bus zone on the other side of the street going in the opposite direction than
which you wish to go.
2.A bus is a vehicle which left the bus zone one minute ago.
Pudder's Laws
1.Anything that begins well ends badly.
2.Anything that begins badly ends worse.
The Puncture Principle
Nails are selectively attracted to the inside wheel on a dual wheeled vehicle.
Puritan's Law
Evil is live spelled backwards.
Corollary - If it feels good, don't do it.
Putney's Law
If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are
essential to that democracy.
Putt's Law
Technology is dominated by two types of people -- those who understand what they do not manage,
and those who manage what they do not understand.
Panic Instruction
When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
Paperboy's rule of Weather
No matter how clear the skies are, a thunderstorm will move in 5 minutes after the papers are
delivered.
Paradox of Selective Equality
All thing being equal, all things are never equal.
Paradoxical Law
Doing it the hard way is always easier.
Pardo's Postulates
1.Anything good is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
2.The three faithful things in life are money, a dog, and an old woman.
3.Don't care if you're rich or not, as long as you live comfortably and can have everything you want.
Pareto's Law (The 20/80 Law)
20% of the customers account for 80% of the turnover, 20% of the components account for 80% of
the cost, and so forth.
Parker's Law of Political Statements
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility, and vice versa.
Parker's Prophesies
1.If anything is used to it's full potential, it will break.
2.Anything labeled "new" and/or "improved" isn't.
3.If an item is advertised as "under $50.00," you can bet it's not $19.95.
4.The one you want is never the one on sale.
5.If you like it, they don't have it in your size.
6.You never want the one you can afford.
Parker's Rule of Parliamentary Procedure
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
Parker's Third Rule of Tech Support
If you can't navigate a one-level, five-item phone tree, you didn't need a computer anyway.
Parkin's Law of Irritation
Anything that happens enough times to irritate you will happen at least once more.
Parking Laws
Parking place Defined: A huge space large enough for six cars on the other side of the street.
Axioms:
1.As soon as you have made your U Turn to take one of the places six cars come along and
take all of them all.
2.If you have to park six blocks away and walk back to the building, you will find two new parking
spaces right in front of the building entrance when you get there.
3.If only two cars are left in a huge parking lot, one will be blocking the other.
Parkinson's Axioms
1.An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.
2.Officials make work for each other.
Parkinson's Law of 1000
An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so
much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.
Parkinson's Law of Delay
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Parkinson's Law of Medical Research
Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.
Parkinson's Law of the Telephone
The effectiveness of a telephone conversation is in inverse proportion to the time spent on it.
Parkinson's Laws
1.Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived
importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion.
2.Expenditures rise to meet income.
3.Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.
4.The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to
be done.
5.If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
6.The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.
Parkinson's Principle of Non-Origination
It is the essence of grantsmanship to persuade the Foundation executives that it was THEY who
suggested the research project and that you were a belated convert, agreeing reluctantly to all they
had proposed.
Parson's Laws
1.If you break a cup or plate, it will not be the one that was already chipped or cracked.
2.A place you want to get to is always just off the edge of the map you happen to have handy.
3.A meeting lasts at least 1 1/2 hours however short the agenda.
The Party Law
The more food you prepare, the less your guests eat.
Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem
Nothing is ultimate.
Pastore's Truths
1.Even paranoids have enemies.
2.Most jobs are marginally better than daytime TV.
3.On alcohol: four is one more than more than enough.
Patrick's Theorem
If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.
Patton's Law
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
Paturi Principle
Success is the result of behavior that completely contradicts the usual expectations about the
behavior of a successful person.
Corollary - The amount of success is in inverse proportion to the effort involved in attaining it.
Paul Principle
People become progressively less competent for jobs they once were well equipped to handle.
Paul's Law (of Drinking)
You can't fall off the floor.
Paul's Law of Group Insurance
The illness you come down with is the one ailment not covered under your insurance policy.
Paulg's Law
In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.
Peck's Programming Postulates (Philosophic Engineering applied to programming)
1.In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually do so.
2.Not until the program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be
discovered.
3.Any constants, limits, or timing formulas that appear in the computer manufacturer's literature should
be treated as variables.
4.The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the greatest chance of being left out of the calling
sequence.
5.If only one compiler can be secured for a piece of hardware, the compilation times will be
exorbitant.
6.If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
7.Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be.
8.Interchangeable tapes won't.
9.If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault.
10.If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method
to get bad data past it.
11.Duplicated object decks which test in identical fashion will not give identical results at remote sites.
12.Manufacturer's hardware and software support ceases with payment for the computer.
Peckham's Law (Beckhap's Law?)
Beauty times brains equals a constant.
Peer's Law
The solution to a problem changes the problem.
Perelman's Point
There is nothing like a good painstaking survey full of decimal points and guarded generalizations
to put a glaze like a Sung vase on your eyeball.
Perkin's Postulate
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
Perlsweig's Law
People who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People who can most afford to pay rent, build up
equity.
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.
Persig's Postulate
The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.
The Perverse Principles of Temperature Regulation
1.The air conditioner in your car will break down on the hottest day of the year, the heater will be stuck
on "High", and all of the windows will be seized shut.
2.The heater will break down on the coldest day of the year, the air conditioner will be stuck on "High"
and the windows will be seized open.
Law of the Perversity of Nature
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Perversity of Nature Law
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Peter Principle
In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee tends to rise to his level of
incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties.
Corollaries:
1.Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
2.Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of
incompetence.
3.If at first you don't succeed, try something else.
Peter's Hidden Postulate According to Godin
Every employee begins at his level of competence.
Peter's Inversion
Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficiency.
Peter's Law of Evolution
Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.
Peter's Law of Substitution
Look after the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves.
Peter's Observation
Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.
Peter's Paradox
Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their colleagues.
Peter's Perfect People Palliative
Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some (perhaps) not-so-good qualities. In considering
our fellow people we should remember their good qualities and realize that their faults only prove
that they are, after all, human. We should refrain from making harsh judgments of people just
because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.
Peter's Placebo
An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Peter's Prognosis
Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will disappear.
Peter's Rule for Creative Incompetence
Create the impression that you have already reached your level of incompetence.
Peter's Theorem
Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.
Peters principal
1.In any hierarchy, each individual rises to his own level of incompetence, and then remains there.
2.There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over.
3.People specialize in their area of greatest weakness.
4.Every organization has an allotted number of positions to be filled by incompetents.
Peterson's Law
History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or, expressed
differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt.
Phases of a Project
1.Exultation.
2.Disenchantment.
3.Confusion.
4.Search for the Guilty.
5.Punishment of the Innocent.
6.Distinction for the Uninvolved.
Phelps's Law of Retributive Statistics
An unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally long
sequence of trouble.
Phelps's Laws of Renovation
1.Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice as much and take three times as long as
originally estimated.
2.Any plumbing pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent condition;
those you decide to leave in place will be rotten.
Phillip's Principle of Observable Repairs
1.The number of witnesses available is inversely proportional to the skill you demonstrate.
2.There will never be anyone around to see you do something brilliant
3.When you really screw up, you will get network coverage with a 40 share.
4.The only thing you didn't check for a malfunction, will be the source of the problem, but you won't find
it until you are called back.
Phone Booth Rule
A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.
The Third Law of Photography
If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the
darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.
Second Law of Physics
You cant push on a rope.
Pierce's Law
In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret, misconstruct, misprint, or not evaluate
any math or subroutines or fail to print any output on at least the first run through.
Corollary to Pierce's Law
When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the program will not yield the
desired output.
Pierson's Law
If you're coasting, you're going downhill.
Pike Law of Punditry
The successful pundit is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.
Pineapple Principle
The best parts of anything are always impossible to remove from the worst parts.
Pitfall of Genius
No boss will keep an employee who is right all the time.
Plotnick's Law
The time of departure will be delayed by the square of the number of people involved.
The Point of No Return Law
The light at the end of the tunnel could turn out to be the headlight of an oncoming train.
Political Axioms
1.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.
2.Politicians will always inflate when given the opportunity.
Law of Political Erosion
Once the erosion of power begins, it has a momentum all its own.
Political Postulate
Formation of a party signals the dissolution of the movement.
Politicians' Rules
1.When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them.
2.When the polls are overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress the
volatility of public opinion.
3.When the polls are slightly unfavorable, play for sympathy as a struggling underdog.
4.When too close to call, be surprised at your own strength.
The Pollyanna Paradox
Every day, in every way, things get better and better; then worse again in the evening.
Pope's Law of Retroactivity
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Postal Postulate
The announcement of the one event you most wanted to attend will arrive in the mail the day after the
it has taken place.
First Postulate of Isomurphism
Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.
Potter's Law
The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.
Poulsen's Law
When anything is used to its full potential, it will break.
Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules
Everything costs more and takes longer.
Powell's Law
Never tell them what you wouldn't do.
Pragmatic Principal
Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
Law of Predictive Action
The second most powerful phrase in the world is "Watch this!" The most powerful phrase is "Oh
yeah? Watch this!"
Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning
It's on the other side.
Price's Law of Politics
It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home.
Price's Law of Science
Scientists who dislike the restraints of highly organized research like to remark that a truly great
research worker needs only three pieces of equipment -- a pencil, a piece of paper, and a brain.
But they quote this maxim more often at academic banquets than at budget hearings.
The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices
The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those
functions.
Principle of Displaced Hassle
To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem.
Principles of success
1.Everyone has a scheme for getting rich that will not work.
2.When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.
3.Whatever you have done is never a complete failure. It can always serve as a bad example.
4.When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.
5.In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
6.It's a simple task to make things complex, but a complex task to make them simple.
7.If you try to please everybody, nobody will like it.
Law of Probability
Random events tend to occur in groups:
Law of Probable Dispersal
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. (also known as the How Come It All Landed On
Me Law)
Law of problems
1.If one views the problem closely enough, he will recognize himself as part of the problem.
2.Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
Corollary - Every solution breeds new problems.
Productivity Equation
The productivity, P, of a group of people is:
P = N x T x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) )
where N is the number of people in the group and T is the number of hours in a work period.
Professional's Law
Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you're not.
Professor Corey's Law
The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the
general public.
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.
Rutger's Corollary - 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.
Profundo's Laws on Staffing
1.The number of customers that visit your shop is inversely proportional to the number of employees
you have to wait on them.
2.When your entire staff is available no one will come.
3.When you are there alone, everyone will come and they will be impatient.
First Law of Project Management
Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarraament of estimating the corresponding
costs.
Sixth Law of Project Management
No matter what stage of completion one reaches, the cost of the remainder of the project remains
constant.
Project scheduling "99" rule
The first 90 percent of the task takes 10 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90
percent.
Proverbial Law
For every proverb that so confidently asserts its little bit of wisdom, there is usually an equal and
opposite proverb that contradicts it.
Psychiatrist's At Home Test
One out of four people is mentally ill. Check three friends; If they're O.K. it must be you.
Public Relations Client Turnover Law
The minute you sign a client is the minute you start to lose him.
First Rule of Public Speaking
Nice guys finish fast.
Law of Public Transit
If you start walking, the first bus will come precisely when you are halfway between stops.
Public Transit Definitions
1.A bus is a vehicle in a bus zone on the other side of the street going in the opposite direction than
which you wish to go.
2.A bus is a vehicle which left the bus zone one minute ago.
Pudder's Laws
1.Anything that begins well ends badly.
2.Anything that begins badly ends worse.
The Puncture Principle
Nails are selectively attracted to the inside wheel on a dual wheeled vehicle.
Puritan's Law
Evil is live spelled backwards.
Corollary - If it feels good, don't do it.
Putney's Law
If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are
essential to that democracy.
Putt's Law
Technology is dominated by two types of people -- those who understand what they do not manage,
and those who manage what they do not understand.
Murphy's Laws O
O
O'Brian's Law
If you change lines, the one you just left will start to move faster than the one you are now in.
O'Brien's First Law of Politics
The more campaigning, the better.
O'Brien's Principle (The $357.73 Theorem)
Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom line divisible by 5 or 10.
O'Brien's Rule
Nothing is ever done for the right reason.
O'Reilly's Law of the Kitchen
Cleanliness is next to impossible.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Murphy was an optimist...
Jones' Extension to O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Not just an optimist- he was a hopeless romantic.
Oaks's Unruly Laws for Lawmakers
1.Law expands in proportion to the resources available for its enforcement.
2.Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed.
3.Social legislation cannot repeal physical laws.
Law of Observation
Nothing looks as good close up as it does from far away.
The Obvious Law
Actually, it only SEEMS as though you mustn't be deceived by appearances.
Occam's Electric Razor
The most difficult light bulb to replace burns out first and most frequently.
Occam's Razor
Entities ought not to be multiplied except from necessity.
Reformulations:
1.The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be correct.
2.Whenever two hypotheses cover the facts, use the simpler of the two.
3.Cut the crap.
Oesner's Law (Oeser's Law?)
There is a tendency for the person in the most powerful position in an organization to spend all his
time serving on committees and signing letters.
Old and Kahn's Law
The efficiency of a committee meeting is inversely proportional to the number of participants and the
time spent on deliberations.
Old Children's Law
If it tastes good, you can't have it. If it tastes awful, you'd better clean your plate.
Old Engineer's Law
The larger the project or job, the less time there is to do it.
Old Scottish Prayer
O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds.
Oliver's Law of Location
No matter where you are, there you are.
Olum's Observation (and see Martha's Maxim and Farrow's Finding)
If God had intended us to go around naked, He would have made us that way.
Ophthalmologist's Principle
A flying particle will seek the nearest eye.
Oppenheimer's Observation
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
Optimum Optimorum Principle
There comes a time when one must stop suggesting and evaluating new solutions, and get on with
the job of analyzing and finally implementing one pretty good solution.
Ordering Principle
Those supplies necessary for yesterday's experiment must be ordered no later than tomorrow noon.
Law of Organization
Disorder expands proportionately to the tolerance for it.
Organizational Law
The less work an organization produces, the more frequently it reorganizes.
Orion's Law
Everything breaks down.
Orwell's Law of Bridge
All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others.
Osborn's Law
Variables won't; constants aren't.
Otoole's Axiom
One child is not enough, but two are too many.
Otten's Law of Testimony
When a person says that, in the interest of saving time, he will summarize his prepared statement,
he will talk only three times as long as if he had read the statement in the first place.
Otten's Law of Typesetting
Typesetters always correct intentional errors, but fail to correct unintentional ones.
Ozian Option
I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.
O'Brian's Law
If you change lines, the one you just left will start to move faster than the one you are now in.
O'Brien's First Law of Politics
The more campaigning, the better.
O'Brien's Principle (The $357.73 Theorem)
Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom line divisible by 5 or 10.
O'Brien's Rule
Nothing is ever done for the right reason.
O'Reilly's Law of the Kitchen
Cleanliness is next to impossible.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Murphy was an optimist...
Jones' Extension to O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Not just an optimist- he was a hopeless romantic.
Oaks's Unruly Laws for Lawmakers
1.Law expands in proportion to the resources available for its enforcement.
2.Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed.
3.Social legislation cannot repeal physical laws.
Law of Observation
Nothing looks as good close up as it does from far away.
The Obvious Law
Actually, it only SEEMS as though you mustn't be deceived by appearances.
Occam's Electric Razor
The most difficult light bulb to replace burns out first and most frequently.
Occam's Razor
Entities ought not to be multiplied except from necessity.
Reformulations:
1.The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be correct.
2.Whenever two hypotheses cover the facts, use the simpler of the two.
3.Cut the crap.
Oesner's Law (Oeser's Law?)
There is a tendency for the person in the most powerful position in an organization to spend all his
time serving on committees and signing letters.
Old and Kahn's Law
The efficiency of a committee meeting is inversely proportional to the number of participants and the
time spent on deliberations.
Old Children's Law
If it tastes good, you can't have it. If it tastes awful, you'd better clean your plate.
Old Engineer's Law
The larger the project or job, the less time there is to do it.
Old Scottish Prayer
O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds.
Oliver's Law of Location
No matter where you are, there you are.
Olum's Observation (and see Martha's Maxim and Farrow's Finding)
If God had intended us to go around naked, He would have made us that way.
Ophthalmologist's Principle
A flying particle will seek the nearest eye.
Oppenheimer's Observation
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
Optimum Optimorum Principle
There comes a time when one must stop suggesting and evaluating new solutions, and get on with
the job of analyzing and finally implementing one pretty good solution.
Ordering Principle
Those supplies necessary for yesterday's experiment must be ordered no later than tomorrow noon.
Law of Organization
Disorder expands proportionately to the tolerance for it.
Organizational Law
The less work an organization produces, the more frequently it reorganizes.
Orion's Law
Everything breaks down.
Orwell's Law of Bridge
All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others.
Osborn's Law
Variables won't; constants aren't.
Otoole's Axiom
One child is not enough, but two are too many.
Otten's Law of Testimony
When a person says that, in the interest of saving time, he will summarize his prepared statement,
he will talk only three times as long as if he had read the statement in the first place.
Otten's Law of Typesetting
Typesetters always correct intentional errors, but fail to correct unintentional ones.
Ozian Option
I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.
Murphy's Laws N
N
The N-1 Law
If you need four screws for the job, the first three are easy to find.
Nader's Law
The speed of exit of a civil servant is directly proportional to the quality of his service.
NASA Skylab Rule
Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
NASA Truisms
1.Research is reading two books that have never been read in order to write a third that will never be
read.
2.A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home.
3.Statistics are a highly logical and precise method for saying a half-truth inaccurately.
Law of Nations
In an underdeveloped country, don't drink the water; in a developed country, don't breathe the air.
Navy Law
If you can keep your head when all about you others are losing theirs, maybe you just don't
understand the situation.
NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law
You never run out of things that can go wrong.
Nef's Law
There is a solution to every problem; the only difficulty is finding it.
Nessen's Law
Secret sources are more credible.
Law of new civically backed football stadiums
If they build it, you will pay.
Law of New Fangled Gadgetry
The most expensive component is the one that breaks.
The New Math Version of Murphy's Law
If there is a 50/50 chance of something going wrong, nine times out of ten it will.
New Theory of Relativity
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.
Newman's Law
Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse.
Newton's Little-known Seventh Law
A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
Nick the Greek's Law
All things considered, life is 9-to-5 against.
Nienberg's Law
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
Nies's Law
The effort expended by the bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of
the error.
Ninety-ninety Rule of Project Schedules
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the
other ninety percent.
Nixon's Rule
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
No. 3 Pencil Principle
Make it sufficiently difficult for people to do something, and most people will stop doing it.
Corollary - If no one uses something, it isn't needed.
Nobel Effect
There is no proposition, no matter how foolish, for which a dozen Nobel signatures cannot be
collected. Furthermore, any such petition is guaranteed page-one treatment in the New York Times.
Nobel Principle
Only someone who understands something absolutely can explain it so no one else can understand
it.
Noble's Law of Political Imagery
All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States.
Corollary - Given a choice between two bald political candidates, the American people will vote for
the less bald of the two.
Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations
1.Negative expectations yield negative results.
2.Positive expectations yield negative results.
North Carolina Equine Paradox
Vyarzerzomanimororsezassezanzerareorses?
Nowlan's Truism
An 'acceptable level of unemployment' means that the government economist to whom it is
acceptable still has a job.
Nursing Mother Principle
Do not nurse a kid who wears braces.
Nyquist's Theory of Equilibrium
Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a
female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.
The N-1 Law
If you need four screws for the job, the first three are easy to find.
Nader's Law
The speed of exit of a civil servant is directly proportional to the quality of his service.
NASA Skylab Rule
Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
NASA Truisms
1.Research is reading two books that have never been read in order to write a third that will never be
read.
2.A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home.
3.Statistics are a highly logical and precise method for saying a half-truth inaccurately.
Law of Nations
In an underdeveloped country, don't drink the water; in a developed country, don't breathe the air.
Navy Law
If you can keep your head when all about you others are losing theirs, maybe you just don't
understand the situation.
NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law
You never run out of things that can go wrong.
Nef's Law
There is a solution to every problem; the only difficulty is finding it.
Nessen's Law
Secret sources are more credible.
Law of new civically backed football stadiums
If they build it, you will pay.
Law of New Fangled Gadgetry
The most expensive component is the one that breaks.
The New Math Version of Murphy's Law
If there is a 50/50 chance of something going wrong, nine times out of ten it will.
New Theory of Relativity
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.
Newman's Law
Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse.
Newton's Little-known Seventh Law
A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
Nick the Greek's Law
All things considered, life is 9-to-5 against.
Nienberg's Law
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
Nies's Law
The effort expended by the bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of
the error.
Ninety-ninety Rule of Project Schedules
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the
other ninety percent.
Nixon's Rule
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
No. 3 Pencil Principle
Make it sufficiently difficult for people to do something, and most people will stop doing it.
Corollary - If no one uses something, it isn't needed.
Nobel Effect
There is no proposition, no matter how foolish, for which a dozen Nobel signatures cannot be
collected. Furthermore, any such petition is guaranteed page-one treatment in the New York Times.
Nobel Principle
Only someone who understands something absolutely can explain it so no one else can understand
it.
Noble's Law of Political Imagery
All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States.
Corollary - Given a choice between two bald political candidates, the American people will vote for
the less bald of the two.
Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations
1.Negative expectations yield negative results.
2.Positive expectations yield negative results.
North Carolina Equine Paradox
Vyarzerzomanimororsezassezanzerareorses?
Nowlan's Truism
An 'acceptable level of unemployment' means that the government economist to whom it is
acceptable still has a job.
Nursing Mother Principle
Do not nurse a kid who wears braces.
Nyquist's Theory of Equilibrium
Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a
female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.
Murphy's Laws M
M
MacDonald's Second Law
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.
Macpherson's Theory of Entropy
It requires less energy to take an object out of it's proper place than to put it back.
Madison's Question
If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class?
Mae West's Observation
To err is human, but it feels terrific.
Mahr's Law of Restrained Involvement
Don't get any on you.
Maier's Law
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Corollaries:
1.The bigger the theory, the better.
2.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)
Main's Law
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
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.
Management Truths
1.Think before you act; it's not your money.
2.All good management is the expression of one great idea.
3.No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
4.Cash in must exceed cash out.
5.Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
6.Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
7.If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
8.If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
9.If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
10.The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.
11.Organizations always have too many managers.
Manley's Maxim
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Margaret Mead's Law of Human Migration
At least fifty percent of the human race doesn't want their mother-in-law within walking distance.
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.
Mark's mark
Love is a matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of physics.
Mark's Observation
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
1.Nobody perceives anything with total accuracy.
2.No two people perceive the same thing identically.
3.Few perceive what difference it makes -- or care.
Martha's Maxim
If God had meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us narrower.
Martin's Exclusion
Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities, computers, employee
parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for dramatic expenditure
increases.
Martin's Law of Committees
All committee reports conclude that "it is not prudent to change the policy (or procedure, or
organization, or whatever) at this time."
Martin's Exclusion: Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities,
computers, employee parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for
dramatic expenditure increases.
Martin's Law of Communication
The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communication between different levels in a
hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.
Martin's Laws of Academia
1.The faculty expands its activity to fit whatever space is available, so that more space is always
required.
2.Faculty purchases of equipment and supplies always increase to match the funds available, so
these funds are never adequate.
3.The professional quality of the faculty tends to be inversely proportional to the importance it attaches
to space and equipment.
Martin's Minimax Maxim
Everyone knows that the name of the game is to let the other guy have all of the little tats and to
keep all of the big tits for yourself.
Martin's Principle of Design Inertia
Any change looks terrible at first.
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 hot air.
Mason's First Law of Synergism
The one day you'd sell your soul forsomething, souls are a glut.
Mason's Law of Gastro Intestinal Disorders
If your stomach only occasionally growls it will happen on the first date with a beautiful woman you
have been trying to get to go out with you for five months.
Matsch's Law
It is better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.
Matsch's Maxim
A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain: everything appears small to him
and he appears small to everybody.
Matz's Warning
Beware of the physician who is great at getting out of trouble.
Maugham's Thought
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
First Maxim of Computers
To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.
May's Law
The quality of the correlation is inversely proportional to the density of the control (the fewer the
facts, the smoother the curves).
May's Mordant Maxim
A university is a place where men of principle outnumber men of honor.
Maytag's Rule
Washing machines only break down during the wash cycle when they are full of water.
McCarthy's Law
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the
game and dumb enough to think it's important.
McClaughry's Law of Public Policy
Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get re-elected; those who propose
structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement.
McClaughry's Law of Zoning
Where zoning is not needed, it will work perfectly; where it is desperately needed, it always breaks
down.
McDonald's Second Law
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.
McGoon's Law
The probability of winning is inversely proportional to the amount of the wager.
McGovern's Law
The longer the title, the less important the job.
McGregor's Revised Maxim
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
McGurk's Law
Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did occur, will occur.
McIllvenna's Theory of Wrongness
1.If anything can go wrong, it will.
2.If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
3.If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4.If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5.If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
6.If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
7.If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don't know what's going on.
8.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.
McKenna's Law
When you are right, be logical. When you are wrong, be-fuddle.
McLaughlin's Law
The length of any meeting is inversely proportional to the length of the agenda for that meeting.
McLean's Maxim
There are only two problems with people. One is that they don't think. The other is that they do.
McNaughton's Rule
Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be capable of being expressed in a simple
declarative sentence that is obviously true once stated.
Melcher's Law
In a bureaucracy, every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum number of names that
can be typed in a single vertical column.
Mencken's Law
Those who can- do. Those who cannot- teach. Those who cannot teach- administrate.
Mencken's Metalaw
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong.
Law of mental health
If you're feeling good, don't worry, you'll get over it.
Merkin's Maxim
When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.
Merrill's Corollaries
1.There are no winners in life; only survivors.
2.In the highway of life, the average happening is of about as much true significance as a dead skunk
in the middle of the road.
Merrill's Laws of Scholarship
1.Never let your major professor know that you exist.
2.The final exam will be based entirely on the one lecture you missed about the book you didn't read.
3.The more studying you did for the exam, the less sure you are as to which answer they want.
4.When you are occasionally able to schedule two classes in a row, they will be held in classrooms at
opposite ends of the campus.
Meskimen's Laws
1.When they want it bad (in a rush), they get it bad.
2.There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
Mesta's Law of Parties
Those who live closest arrive last.
Meteorological Law
As soon as the stewardess serves coffee, the airliner encounters turbulence.
Scientific Explanation
Serving coffee on an airliner causes turbulence.
Meyer's Law
In a social situation, that which is most difficult to do is usually the right thing to do.
Michehl's Theorem
Less is more.
Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem
Nothing is ultimate.
Mickelson's Law of Falling Objects
Any object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.
Miksch's Law
If a string has one end, then it has another end.
Miller's Christmas Card Rule
After you've mailed your last card, you will receive a card from someone you've overlooked.
Miller's Law (Martin's Extension)
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.
Mills's Law of Transportation Logistics
The distance to the gate from which your flight departs is inversely proportional to the time
remaining before the scheduled departure of the flight.
Corollaries (Woods):
1.This remains true even as you rush to catch the flight.
2.From this it follows that you are invariably rushing the wrong way.
Miscellaneous Pessimistic Musings
1.The chance of a piece of bread falling down with the buttered side down is directly proportional to
the cost of the carpet.
2.Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
3.No matter how long or hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere
else cheaper.
4.Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
5.Whatever plan one makes, there is a hidden difficulty somewhere.
6.If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will
make perfect sense without it.
7.eware the day in which you don't have something to bitch about.
8.If it looks easy it's tough. If it looks tough it's damn well impossible.
9.Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand, wrong answers.
10.If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
11.There is nothing so small that it can't be blown out of proportion.
12.If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
13.If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less.
MITS Law (Man In The Street)
The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.
Mobil's Maxim
Bad regulation begets worse regulation.
Moer's Truism
The trouble with most jobs is the resemblance to being in a sled dog team: No one gets a change of
scenery, except the lead dog.
Money Maxim
Money isn't everything. (It isn't plentiful, for instance.)
Montagu's Maxim
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Montgomery's Maxim
If at first you don't succeed read the manual.
More of Murphy's Laws
Here is no limit to how bad things can get. There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong.
Morley's Conclusion
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
Morley's Conclusion
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
Morner's Rule of Thumb
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
Morton's Law
If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer. ("What this country needs are some
stronger white rats.")
Mosher's Law
It's better to retire too soon than too late.
Mother Sigafoos's Observation
A man should be greater than some of his parts.
Mother's Laws
1.You can't fall off the floor. (it takes children three years to learn this law.)
2.A child will not spill on a dirty floor.
3.Any child who chatters non-stop at home will adamantly refuse to utter a word when requested to
demonstrate for an audience.
4.An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
Motor Vehicle Postulate
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above-average drivers.
Motorist's Axioms
1.The driver in front of you wants to go five miles per hour slower than you.
2.When you're not in a hurry, the traffic light will turn green as soon as your vehicle comes to a
complete stop.
3.You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
4.Your own car uses more gas and oil than anyone else's.
5.Four wheel drive just means getting stuck in more inaccessible places.
6.A short cut is the longest distance between two points.
Mr. Cole's Axiom
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
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.
Mrs. Parkinson's Law
Heat produced by pressure expands to fill the mind available, from which it can pass only to a cooler
mind.
Muir's Law
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitchedto everything else in the universe.
Munnecke's Law
If you don't say it, they can't repeat it.
Munroes Observation
Common sense is not that common.
Murchison's Law of Money
Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good. But if you pile it up in one place,
it stinks like hell.
The Murphy Philosophy
Smile, tomorrow will be worse.
Murphy's Constant
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
Murphy's Corollaries
1.Murphy's Law may be delayed or suspended for an indefinite period of time, provided that such
delay or suspension will result in a greater catastrophe at a later date.
2.The magnitude of the catastrophe is directly proportional to the number of people watching.
3.The magnitude of the catastrophe is exponentially proportional to the importance of the occasion.
4.If an outcome has a 50% chance of occurring, its actual probability of happening is inversely
proportional to the desirability of the outcome.
5.If two corollaries of Murphy's Law contradict each other, the one with greater potential for damage
takes precedence.
Murphy's Faux Pas
1.The intensity of an itch is proportional to the formality of the occasion.
2.Light clothing attracts dark-colored food spills; Dark clothing attracts light- colored food spills.
3.The probability that you forget somebody's name is directly proportional to the degree to which they
would feel insulted.
4.Other people will not notice your subtle hints, no matter how hard you try.
5.You will not notice other people's subtle hints, no matter how hard they try.
Law of Murphy's Law
Murphy's law was not propounded by Murphy, but by another man with the same name.
Murphy's Law of Copiers
The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.
Murphy's Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
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.
Murphy's Restatement
Everything goes wrong all at once.
Murray's Consumer Axioms
1.Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
2.Never ask a salesman if his is a good price.
3.Always hire a rich attorney.
4.Never buy from a rich salesman.
Law of Museums
The most interesting specimen will not be labeled.
The First Myth of Management
It exists.
MacDonald's Second Law
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.
Macpherson's Theory of Entropy
It requires less energy to take an object out of it's proper place than to put it back.
Madison's Question
If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class?
Mae West's Observation
To err is human, but it feels terrific.
Mahr's Law of Restrained Involvement
Don't get any on you.
Maier's Law
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Corollaries:
1.The bigger the theory, the better.
2.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)
Main's Law
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
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.
Management Truths
1.Think before you act; it's not your money.
2.All good management is the expression of one great idea.
3.No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
4.Cash in must exceed cash out.
5.Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
6.Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
7.If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
8.If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
9.If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
10.The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.
11.Organizations always have too many managers.
Manley's Maxim
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Margaret Mead's Law of Human Migration
At least fifty percent of the human race doesn't want their mother-in-law within walking distance.
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.
Mark's mark
Love is a matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of physics.
Mark's Observation
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
1.Nobody perceives anything with total accuracy.
2.No two people perceive the same thing identically.
3.Few perceive what difference it makes -- or care.
Martha's Maxim
If God had meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us narrower.
Martin's Exclusion
Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities, computers, employee
parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for dramatic expenditure
increases.
Martin's Law of Committees
All committee reports conclude that "it is not prudent to change the policy (or procedure, or
organization, or whatever) at this time."
Martin's Exclusion: Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities,
computers, employee parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for
dramatic expenditure increases.
Martin's Law of Communication
The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communication between different levels in a
hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.
Martin's Laws of Academia
1.The faculty expands its activity to fit whatever space is available, so that more space is always
required.
2.Faculty purchases of equipment and supplies always increase to match the funds available, so
these funds are never adequate.
3.The professional quality of the faculty tends to be inversely proportional to the importance it attaches
to space and equipment.
Martin's Minimax Maxim
Everyone knows that the name of the game is to let the other guy have all of the little tats and to
keep all of the big tits for yourself.
Martin's Principle of Design Inertia
Any change looks terrible at first.
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 hot air.
Mason's First Law of Synergism
The one day you'd sell your soul forsomething, souls are a glut.
Mason's Law of Gastro Intestinal Disorders
If your stomach only occasionally growls it will happen on the first date with a beautiful woman you
have been trying to get to go out with you for five months.
Matsch's Law
It is better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.
Matsch's Maxim
A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain: everything appears small to him
and he appears small to everybody.
Matz's Warning
Beware of the physician who is great at getting out of trouble.
Maugham's Thought
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
First Maxim of Computers
To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.
May's Law
The quality of the correlation is inversely proportional to the density of the control (the fewer the
facts, the smoother the curves).
May's Mordant Maxim
A university is a place where men of principle outnumber men of honor.
Maytag's Rule
Washing machines only break down during the wash cycle when they are full of water.
McCarthy's Law
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the
game and dumb enough to think it's important.
McClaughry's Law of Public Policy
Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get re-elected; those who propose
structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement.
McClaughry's Law of Zoning
Where zoning is not needed, it will work perfectly; where it is desperately needed, it always breaks
down.
McDonald's Second Law
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.
McGoon's Law
The probability of winning is inversely proportional to the amount of the wager.
McGovern's Law
The longer the title, the less important the job.
McGregor's Revised Maxim
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
McGurk's Law
Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did occur, will occur.
McIllvenna's Theory of Wrongness
1.If anything can go wrong, it will.
2.If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
3.If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4.If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5.If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
6.If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
7.If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don't know what's going on.
8.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.
McKenna's Law
When you are right, be logical. When you are wrong, be-fuddle.
McLaughlin's Law
The length of any meeting is inversely proportional to the length of the agenda for that meeting.
McLean's Maxim
There are only two problems with people. One is that they don't think. The other is that they do.
McNaughton's Rule
Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be capable of being expressed in a simple
declarative sentence that is obviously true once stated.
Melcher's Law
In a bureaucracy, every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum number of names that
can be typed in a single vertical column.
Mencken's Law
Those who can- do. Those who cannot- teach. Those who cannot teach- administrate.
Mencken's Metalaw
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong.
Law of mental health
If you're feeling good, don't worry, you'll get over it.
Merkin's Maxim
When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.
Merrill's Corollaries
1.There are no winners in life; only survivors.
2.In the highway of life, the average happening is of about as much true significance as a dead skunk
in the middle of the road.
Merrill's Laws of Scholarship
1.Never let your major professor know that you exist.
2.The final exam will be based entirely on the one lecture you missed about the book you didn't read.
3.The more studying you did for the exam, the less sure you are as to which answer they want.
4.When you are occasionally able to schedule two classes in a row, they will be held in classrooms at
opposite ends of the campus.
Meskimen's Laws
1.When they want it bad (in a rush), they get it bad.
2.There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
Mesta's Law of Parties
Those who live closest arrive last.
Meteorological Law
As soon as the stewardess serves coffee, the airliner encounters turbulence.
Scientific Explanation
Serving coffee on an airliner causes turbulence.
Meyer's Law
In a social situation, that which is most difficult to do is usually the right thing to do.
Michehl's Theorem
Less is more.
Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem
Nothing is ultimate.
Mickelson's Law of Falling Objects
Any object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.
Miksch's Law
If a string has one end, then it has another end.
Miller's Christmas Card Rule
After you've mailed your last card, you will receive a card from someone you've overlooked.
Miller's Law (Martin's Extension)
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.
Mills's Law of Transportation Logistics
The distance to the gate from which your flight departs is inversely proportional to the time
remaining before the scheduled departure of the flight.
Corollaries (Woods):
1.This remains true even as you rush to catch the flight.
2.From this it follows that you are invariably rushing the wrong way.
Miscellaneous Pessimistic Musings
1.The chance of a piece of bread falling down with the buttered side down is directly proportional to
the cost of the carpet.
2.Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
3.No matter how long or hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere
else cheaper.
4.Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
5.Whatever plan one makes, there is a hidden difficulty somewhere.
6.If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will
make perfect sense without it.
7.eware the day in which you don't have something to bitch about.
8.If it looks easy it's tough. If it looks tough it's damn well impossible.
9.Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand, wrong answers.
10.If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
11.There is nothing so small that it can't be blown out of proportion.
12.If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
13.If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less.
MITS Law (Man In The Street)
The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.
Mobil's Maxim
Bad regulation begets worse regulation.
Moer's Truism
The trouble with most jobs is the resemblance to being in a sled dog team: No one gets a change of
scenery, except the lead dog.
Money Maxim
Money isn't everything. (It isn't plentiful, for instance.)
Montagu's Maxim
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Montgomery's Maxim
If at first you don't succeed read the manual.
More of Murphy's Laws
Here is no limit to how bad things can get. There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong.
Morley's Conclusion
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
Morley's Conclusion
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
Morner's Rule of Thumb
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
Morton's Law
If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer. ("What this country needs are some
stronger white rats.")
Mosher's Law
It's better to retire too soon than too late.
Mother Sigafoos's Observation
A man should be greater than some of his parts.
Mother's Laws
1.You can't fall off the floor. (it takes children three years to learn this law.)
2.A child will not spill on a dirty floor.
3.Any child who chatters non-stop at home will adamantly refuse to utter a word when requested to
demonstrate for an audience.
4.An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
Motor Vehicle Postulate
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above-average drivers.
Motorist's Axioms
1.The driver in front of you wants to go five miles per hour slower than you.
2.When you're not in a hurry, the traffic light will turn green as soon as your vehicle comes to a
complete stop.
3.You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
4.Your own car uses more gas and oil than anyone else's.
5.Four wheel drive just means getting stuck in more inaccessible places.
6.A short cut is the longest distance between two points.
Mr. Cole's Axiom
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
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.
Mrs. Parkinson's Law
Heat produced by pressure expands to fill the mind available, from which it can pass only to a cooler
mind.
Muir's Law
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitchedto everything else in the universe.
Munnecke's Law
If you don't say it, they can't repeat it.
Munroes Observation
Common sense is not that common.
Murchison's Law of Money
Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good. But if you pile it up in one place,
it stinks like hell.
The Murphy Philosophy
Smile, tomorrow will be worse.
Murphy's Constant
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
Murphy's Corollaries
1.Murphy's Law may be delayed or suspended for an indefinite period of time, provided that such
delay or suspension will result in a greater catastrophe at a later date.
2.The magnitude of the catastrophe is directly proportional to the number of people watching.
3.The magnitude of the catastrophe is exponentially proportional to the importance of the occasion.
4.If an outcome has a 50% chance of occurring, its actual probability of happening is inversely
proportional to the desirability of the outcome.
5.If two corollaries of Murphy's Law contradict each other, the one with greater potential for damage
takes precedence.
Murphy's Faux Pas
1.The intensity of an itch is proportional to the formality of the occasion.
2.Light clothing attracts dark-colored food spills; Dark clothing attracts light- colored food spills.
3.The probability that you forget somebody's name is directly proportional to the degree to which they
would feel insulted.
4.Other people will not notice your subtle hints, no matter how hard you try.
5.You will not notice other people's subtle hints, no matter how hard they try.
Law of Murphy's Law
Murphy's law was not propounded by Murphy, but by another man with the same name.
Murphy's Law of Copiers
The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.
Murphy's Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
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.
Murphy's Restatement
Everything goes wrong all at once.
Murray's Consumer Axioms
1.Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
2.Never ask a salesman if his is a good price.
3.Always hire a rich attorney.
4.Never buy from a rich salesman.
Law of Museums
The most interesting specimen will not be labeled.
The First Myth of Management
It exists.
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