Sam Rayburn quotes

You'll never get mixed up if you simply tell the truth. Then you don't have to remember what you have said, and you never forget what you have said. (Sam Rayburn)
A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one. View quote
Sam Rayburn
No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut. View quote
Sam Rayburn
Too many critics mistake the deliberations of the Congress for its decisions. View quote
Sam Rayburn
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too. View quote
Sam Rayburn
Don't try to go too fast. Learn your job. Don't ever talk until you know what you're talking about... If you want to get along, go along. View quote
Sam Rayburn
In my many years as a Representative in Congress it is my observation that the district that is best represented is the district that is wise enough to select a man of energy, intelligence, and integrity and reelects him year after year. A man of this type and character serves more efficiently and effectively the longer he is returned by his people. View quote
Sam Rayburn
Well, Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once. View quote
Sam Rayburn
If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is. View quote
Sam Rayburn
It has always been my ambition since childhood to live such a life that one day my fellow citizens would call me to membership in this popular branch of the greatest lawmaking body in the world. Out of their confidence and partiality they have done this. It is now my sole purpose here to help enact such wise and just laws that our common country will by virtue of these laws be a happier and a more prosperous country. I have always dreamed of a country which I believe this should be and will be, and that is one in which the citizenship is an educated and patriotic people, not swayed by passion and prejudice, and a country that shall know no East, no West, no North, no South, but inhabited by a people liberty loving, patriotic, happy, and prosperous, with its lawmakers having no other purpose than to write such just laws as shall in the years to come be of service to human kind yet unborn. View quote
Sam Rayburn
Learn to disagree without being disagreeable. (Sam Rayburn)
If you want to get along, go along. View quote
Sam Rayburn
A damn independent boy; independent as a hog on ice. View quote
Sam Rayburn
Son, always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time. View quote
Sam Rayburn
I like power and I like to use it. View quote
Sam Rayburn
When you get too big a majority, you're immediately in trouble.' View quote
Sam Rayburn
The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart. View quote
Sam Rayburn