rules Quotes

“He should not be here, ” said the fish in the pot. “he should not be here when your mother is not.”

“So all we could do was to Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! And we did not like it. Not one little bit.”

“Then Sally and I Did not know what to say. Our mother was out of the house for the day.”

“I mean, it’s sort of exciting isn’t it? Breaking the rules.”

“...and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires”

“Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.” Everybody looked at Alice. “I’m not a mile high,” said Alice. “You are,” said the King. “Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. “Well, I sha’n’t go, at any rate,” said Alice; “besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.” “It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. “Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice.

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

“Even in the world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts have to be consistent and belong together.”

“I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.” “So as to do them?” asked her aunt. “So as to choose.” said Isabel”

No. I will remain because I have been accustomed for thirty years to go and take the orderly word of the King, and to have it said to me, ‘Good evening, d’Artagnan,’ with a smile I did not beg for!

“Our one rule besides, Stick together is, Don’t get caught.”

“You know the rules. No jazz before a rumble.”

“We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.”

″‘Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.‘” ‘Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.’ Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. All I know is I saw two people struggling to get inside these walls and they couldn’t make it. To ignore that because of some stupid rule seemed selfish, cowardly, and...well, stupid. If you want to throw me in jail for trying to save someone’s life, then go ahead. Next time I promise I’ll point at them and laugh, then go eat some of Frypan’s dinner.”

“Love your pals. Love yourself.”

“Unlike her little brother, Kendra was not a natural rule breaker.”

“The water they had disturbed under the impulsion of a necessity which they had not wantonly incurred, having been forced to use it in defending themselves against the Boeotians who first invaded Attica. Besides, anything done under the pressure of war and danger might reasonably claim indulgence even in the eye of the god; or why, pray, were the altars the asylum for involuntary offences?”

“It was against the rules for normal people-human people like me and Charlie- to know about the clandestine world full of myths and monsters that existed secretly around us.”

“PS, I promised a list so here it is. The following envelopes must be opened exactly when labeled and must be obeyed. And remember, I’m looking out for you, so I will know...”

″‘We’d better hurry or we’ll be late for dinner,’ I said, breaking into what Finny called my “West Point stride.” Phineas didn’t really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it.”

“The Devon faculty had never before experienced a student who combined a calm ignorance of the rules with a winning urge to be good, who seemed to love the school truly and deeply, and never more than when he was breaking the regulations […]. The faculty threw up its hands over Phineas, and so loosened its grip on all of us.”

“I noticed something about Finny’s own mind, which was such an opposite from mine. It wasn’t completely unleashed after all. I noticed that he did abide by certain rules, which he seemed to cast in the form of Commandments. ‘Never say you are five feet nine when you are five feet eight and a half’ was the first one I encountered.”

“My brief animosity, lasting only a second, a part of a second, something which came before I could recognize it and was gone before I knew it had possessed me, what was that in the midst of this holocaust?”

“Good children are defined as meek, considerate, unselfish and perfectly law-abiding. Such rules allow no place for vitality, spontaneity, inner freedom, inner independence and critical judgment. These rules cause parents, even well-intentioned ones, to abandon their children. Such abandonment creates the toxic shame I’ve been describing.

“For every one that Jurgis spoke to assured him that it was a waste of time to seek employment for the old man in Packingtown. Szedvilas told him that the packers did not even keep the men who had grown old in their own service – to say nothing of taking on new ones. And not only was it the rule here, it was the rule everywhere in America, so far as he knew.”

“This kingdom is not just a spiritual realm high above the concerns of human history. Nor is it a matter of geography and national boundaries. It is God’s gracious rule in the hearts and lives of his people.”

“In the track of fear we have so many conditions, expectations, and obligations that we create a lot of rules just to protect ourselves against emotional pain, when the truth is that there shouldn’t be any rules. These rules affect the quality of the channels of communication between us, because when we are afraid, we lie.”

“My father sometimes bends the rules for those he loves.”

“My father has always broken the rules for those he loves, just as my mother has always kept them for the same reason.”

“People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.”

″‘I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,’ she said to herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place. ‘One Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse; and, if he misses, he tumbles off himself – and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy – What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!‘”

“In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t google.)”

″‘You are not to go outside under any circumstances,’ Silvia continued, ‘During the day, there will be times when you can go into the garden, but not without permission.‘”

“And that’s what trust is. We don’t just trust people to obey the rules, we also trust that they know when to break them.”

“You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”

“I never spoke more plainly in my life. Try believing the evidence instead of insisting that the cameras must be at fault because what they saw was not what you expected.”

“And now (he felt sure) Mike was about to be treated as a sovereign by those nabobs—with the world watching. Let ‘em try to roust the boy around after this!”

“A prude thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”

“If you prized my lady’s favor at anything more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule”

“Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”

“You are remembered for the rules you break.”

“Geisha never marry. Or at least those who do no longer continue as geisha.”

“Do as you’re told; don’t be too much trouble; and you might begin learning the arts of a geisha two or three months from now.”

“You make it sound as if Bert is a hero. I’d like to think that, but I can’t. A schoolteacher is a public servant: I think he should do what the law and the school-board want him to. If the superintendent says, ‘Miss Brown, you’re to teach from Whitley’s Second Reader,’ I don’t feel I have to give him an argument.”

“Human beings are not reasonable creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true.”

“In school, we learned about the world before ours, about the angels and gods that lived in the sky, ruling the earth with kind and loving hands. Some say those are just stories, but I don’t believe that. The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.”

“You can’t just wake up one day and decide to be an elephant, Alfred. The world doesn’t work like that. There are rules, Alfred. And you want to stomp all over them. Get over yourself.”

“For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.”

“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.”

“It was against the rules to remain indifferent to it.”

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”

“Connor knows his situation calls for justified caution—not just tonight, but for the next two years. Then once he turns eighteen, he’s home free.”

“All who know me consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence, my next, method.”

“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”

“After a few words touching (Bartleby’s) qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey and the fiery one of Nippers.”

“To make anyone answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception.”

“As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but, in his pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced.”

″‘Make no mistake about it: What we do here is highly illegal, but that does not mean we don’t follow the rule of law. My law.‘”

“You can’t let buffoons rule your life.”

″‘They can’t unwind me now—there are laws against unwinding the disabled—but if I got the operation, they’d unwind me the moment I was healed. This way I get to stay whole.’ She smiles at him triumphantly. ‘So you’re not the only one who beat the system.‘”

“If anarchy, therefore, were the inevitable consequence of rejecting the new Constitution, it would be infinitely better to incur it, for even then there would be at least the chance of a good government rising out of licentiousness. ”

“The wise ones serve on the higher, but rule on the lower. They obey the laws coming from above them, but en their own plane, and those below them, they rule and give orders.”

″‘They do it all the time,’ says Hayden. ‘That’s what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.‘”

“At least, not until she met Patrick Casey, who proved that the charm of the Irish was not just a cliche.”

“Red tape is no match for green money.”

“Red tape is no match for green money.”

“For where the laws do not rule there is no regime.”

“I pray that the leaders of this nation will submit their rule to the reign of Jesus Christ according to Daniel 7:14. I pray that the government and peace of Jesus Christ bring continual increase to our nation.”

“New rule,” he said. “No more rules.” She smiled. “And if I agree to this ‘no more rules,’ what’s in it for me?” “Me.” She felt the smile burst bloom across her face. “Well, if that’s not the best offer I’ve ever had.”

″‘Power is all that counts,’ he taught his son. ‘Rules are made by the strongest, so be sure that you’re the one who makes them.‘”

“You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden. Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. Mcgregor.”

“Now run along, and don’t get into mischief.”

“STOP You must not hop on Pop. ”

“You rule all the land. And you rule all the people. But even kings can’t rule the sky.”

“We have rules about strangers- and they’re important!”

“Rules are meant to be broken”

“Johnny Warren says there’s lots of things aren’t fair in our town. Like blacks aren’t supposed to drink in the pub, not many of them anyway; and not him.”

“ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES. They weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.”

“When they said you were gone, I cried all night, I confessed. And the next morning, over hard-boiled eggs and sugar cereal, Shawn taught me Rule Number One— no crying.”

“He knew them like I knew them. Passed to him. Passed them to his little brother. Passed to my older brother. Passed to me. The Rules have always ruled. Past present future forever.”

“The Rules are the rules.”

“Hearts get infiltrated. Promises get broken. Rules get shattered. Love gets ugly.”

“He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work.”

“Tom was angry. ‘While you’re in my house,’ he said in a choked voice, ‘you’ll live by my rules. I ent ever hit a child...‘”

“Don’t stroke the dog, Shirley, you don’t know where he’s been.”

“Hustle dig Grind push Run fast Change pivot Chase pull Aim shoot Work smart Live smarter Play hard Practice harder”

“He wants to believe that playing by the monarchy’s rules will keep us safe, but nothing can protect us when those rules are rooted in hate.”

“The woman, who did not always follow the rules, followed the rules.”

“No class of man is altogether bad, but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of mine were no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some glimmerings of honesty.”

“D. Very important. Once a game of Jumanji is started it will not be over until one player reaches the golden city.”

“Another simple rule is, when you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.”

“Jeff frowned. He wished the Missouri bushwhackers would live by the rule Mr. Lincoln had laid down in his speech at Leavenworth. […] But neither side had heeded Lincoln’s gentle advice.”

“You weren’t allowed to throw them- that would have been too easy; you had to slap them on to the tank by hand.”

“When you have magic powers and know it, it can be a fine feeling, like a pleasant tingling inside. But in order to enjoy that tingling, you have to know just how much magic you have and what the rules are for using it.”

“Billy Buck sat down on the steps, because he was a cow-hand, and it wouldn’t be fitting that he should go first into the dining room.”

“For him, rules were about politeness and respect and ensuring the survival of a civilized society.”

“As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.”

Guests at the Red House were allowed to do what they liked within reason—the reasonableness or otherwise of it being decided by Mark. But when once they (or Mark) had made up their minds as to what they wanted to do, the plan had to be kept.

“Ah, but what about the Law of the Jungle?”

“Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.”

“The widder wouldn’t let me smoke; she wouldn’t let me yell, she wouldn’t let me gape, nor stretch, nor scratch, before folks—”