Quotes About Rules

Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.

Many of our students want to do what they have done and that has made them successful thus far in their lives: play by the rules, and do what is expected. But as much social science research and writing by Malcolm Gladwell, among others, make clear, the rules are mostly created by those already in power so obtaining power often entails standing out and breaking rules and social conventions.

The good thing about rules is if you have to do an interview, and you make some rules for that interview, like, "I can only ask him about five years of his life or her life," it narrows down your story. It's the same thing with acting. In my profession, if I say, "These are the rules for this character," all of the sudden, you create life.

I always say that you could publish trading rules in the newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80 percent as good as what we taught people. What they couldn’t do is give them the confidence to stick to those rules even when things are going bad.

I think the President of the United States must operate by rules. I think our judicial system must operate by the rules. You have to operate by the rules of the system, and if you don't, if you pull rank, then you lose all your credibility.

When you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing. This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and know what is possible and impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can. If you don't know it's impossible it's easier to do. And because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.

Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-Tzu is even more conservative, saying that if you do nothing you won't break any rules. You have to let tradition fall sometime, you have to take action, you have to eat bacon.

Legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real... There are far too many instances within Christendom where our traditions and rules are, in practice, more important than God's commands.

As someone with a deep faith in competition and the market, I also know that markets only work with tough enforcement of the rules that guarantee competition and fair play - and that the pressure to break those rules only gets stronger as the amount of money involved gets larger.

The development of mathematics toward greater precision has led, as is well known, to the formalization of large tracts of it, so that one can prove any theorem using nothing but a few mechanical rules... One might therefore conjecture that these axioms and rules of inference are sufficient to decide any mathematical question that can at all be formally expressed in these systems. It will be shown below that this is not the case, that on the contrary there are in the two systems mentioned relatively simple problems in the theory of integers that cannot be decided on the basis of the axioms.

China is both an adversary, but also a potential partner in the international community if it's following the rules. So my attitude coming into office was that we are going to insist that China plays by the same rules as everybody else.

Ballroom dancing: it's a wonderful thing at so many levels because you've got to follow the rules. They used to call those rules etiquette once upon a time, but you don't really have that any more.

You need to realize that most writing rules aren't laws, they're rules of thumb.

Mankind has one great habit, a bad habit: To create rules on behalf of God! Unless A God appears on the sky and says 'Here are the rules,' do not take any rule serious! Remember that in this universe, there is no port that you can take refuge apart from the reason and the science!

The refs are so confused themselves because there's so many rules. It's like, 'Oh my gosh I've never seen this many rules in my life.' And everybody's trying to govern this and justify that.

No. There is no balance, and no retribution, and no rules. The rules and balances you blather about are hopeful creations of a man fearing death.

Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

I find that I'm at my least creative point when I am doing something that I've done in repetition and I know all the rules - I never break the rules because I know them.

There are rules in advertising, and those rules are self-imposed by the client companies because they don't want their products to be seen as dishonest.

The banks lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get the money to bail them out. And then they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis. It's perfect circularity.

When I used to work for Reverend Jesse Jackson he would say, "You've got to know the rules in order to break the rules." The 1988 campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson made fundamental changes to the way Democrats do business.

I broke a lot of rules because I didn't know the rules.

Success is not to be gained by a blind and slavish following of anyone's rules or advice, our own any more than any other person's. There is no royal road to success- no patent process by which the unsuccessful are to be magically transformed. . . . Rules and advice may greatly assist-and they undoubtedly do this-but the real work must be accomplished by the individual. He or she must carve out his or her own destiny.

The rules of marriage were simple and easy to follow: faithfulness, patience, compromise. But there were no rules to divorce, or if there were, he had not yet discovered them.

No one disputes that seeming order can come out of the application of simple rules. But who wrote the rules?

Experience will guide us to the rules. You cannot make rules precede practical experience.

When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren't strictly true. In general, the later chapters contain more reliable information than the earlier ones do. The author feels that this technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. Once you understand a simple but false rule, it will not be hard to supplement that rule with its exceptions.

A work of art must make the rules: rules do not make a work of art...I tell people I am not a musician; I work with rhythms, frequencies and intensities...tunes are merely the gossips of music.

Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot really be known to us without the aid of mathematics.

The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them.

I believe art prefers rules. For some artists, the worst thing you can do is say 'Do whatever you want.' Such permission can be terrifying. I know it is for me. Often it's better if you impose rules or restrictions on a project. Requirements can force you to be creative in unusual ways.

The more you become a part of society, the less and less you are an individual, the less and less you are spontaneous - because the very membership in the society will not allow you to be spontaneous. You will have to follow the rules of the game. If you enter a society, you accept to follow those rules that the society is playing, or has decided to play.

On the pilgrim's path each man must become Moses, going on a vision quest to some mountaintop and returning with the ten or twenty commandments that he holds sacred. So long as we obey or break the rules that have been set up for us by the Giants - Parents and other Authorities - we remain good or bad children. Growing into the fullness of our humanity means that we become co-authors of the rules by which we will agree to have our lives judged.

No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.

One of the things I've been trying to do is look for simpler or rules underpinning good or bad design. I think one of the most valuable rules is avoid duplication. "Once and only once" is the Extreme Programming phrase.

Sometimes the rules don't work. Sometimes the rules cause the anarchy.

Today you will choose your factions. Until this point you have followed your parents’ paths, your parents’ rules. Today you will find your own path, make your own rules.

The rules of life are made up. The rules only exist in your mind.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

When it comes to raising civilized kids there are no hard rules, but there are two things on which most parents agree: Boys are generally wilder than girls, and adolescents are wilder than kids of any other age. If you've got an adolescent boy, you're in the sweet spot for trouble.

You want what you can’t have. I see it in your eyes. The pain that fills your nights is because of my pack of lies. I’ve opened up the door for you to walk away. There’s a better path for you even though I want you to stay. I’ve broken the rules, I’ve veered from the path but when I met you I knew to save you was worth the wrath. Let me leave now before it’s too late. Let me leave now before you know what I am and your love becomes hate.

I dont think that any person can fix FEMA. I think FEMA needs a total restructuring. I think it needs to be taken from scratch and redone. The regulations are outdated; the rules are outdated.

In times of unrest and in an unstable economy, it is very easy to let your attitude slip and begin feeling sorry for yourself. This is precisely when you want to practice healthy attitudinal rules to stay alert, alive and enthusiastic. Don't ever lose the zest for life and life won't lose its zest for you. Say something positive to every person you meet today.

I am ready to fight according to the rules, and I ask for the opportunity to prove myself.

In today's regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to violate rules.

When you have rules to abide by, does that curtail you as a designer, or set you free? People think of classical architecture visually, but I think the brilliant part of it is actually spatial.

China is eating our lunch because they don't partake in all of the rules and regulations that we do.

Love binds people too, in matrimony's sacred bonds where chaste lovers are met, and friends cement their trust and friendship. How happy is mankind, if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.