WIST Quotations

Rayburn, Sam -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:36:48 +0000

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 (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
(Attributed)

Private conversation quoted in W. B. Ragsdale, “An Old Friend Writes of Rayburn,” U.S. News & World Report (23 Oct 1961)

Rayburn, Sam -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:10:55 +0000

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 (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
(Attributed)

In W. B. Ragsdale, "An Old Friend Writes of Rayburn", U.S. News & World Report (23 Oct 1961).

Rayburn, Sam -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:07:54 +0000

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.

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
(Attributed)

Advice to freshmen Representatives.

Rayburn, Sam -- Comment (c. 1953)

Dave — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:45:41 +0000

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

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
Comment (c. 1953)

Said during a filmed conversation with reporters, reported in S. Rayburn, Speak, Mister Speaker (1978)

Rayburn, Sam -- Maiden speech. House of Representatives (6 May 1913)

Dave — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:11:09 +0000

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.

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
Maiden speech. House of Representatives (6 May 1913)

Congressional Record, vol. 50, p. 1249.

Rayburn, Sam -- Quoted in The Leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn, Collected Tributes of His Congressional Colleagues, House Doc. 87-247 (1961)

Dave — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:18:05 +0000

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

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
Quoted in The Leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn, Collected Tributes of His Congressional Colleagues, House Doc. 87-247 (1961)

Rayburn, Sam -- Remark before reporters (c. 1953)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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

Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) American lawyer and politician
Remark before reporters (c. 1953)

Quoted in Dulaney and Phillips, Speak, Mister Speaker (1978)