* Lucy”s Law : No good deed goes unpunished.
* Lyon”s Law of Hesitation : He who hesitates is last.
* Marshall”s Generalized Iceberg Theorem : Seven-eighths of everything can”t be seen.
* McGoons Law : The probability of winning is inversely propertional to the amount of the wager.
* McGovern”s Law : The longer the title, the less important the job.
* McGurk”s Law : Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did occur, will occur.
* H. L. Mencken”s Law : Those who can–do. Those who cannot–teach. Those who cannot teach–administrate. (Martin”s Extension)
* Miller”s Law : You can”t tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.
* MIST Law (Man In The Street) : The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.
* Nessen”s Law : Secret sources are more credible.
* Nienberg”s Law : Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
* O”Brien”s Rule : Nothing is ever done for the right reason.
* Panic Instruction : When you don”t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
* Paradox of Selective Equality : All thing being equal, all things are never equal.
* The First Law of Management : Kickbacks must always exceed bribes.
* Quantized Revision of Murphy”s Law : Everything goes wrong all at once.
* 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.
* O”Toole”s Commentary on Murphy”s Law : Murphy was an optimist.
* Murphy”s Law of Thermodynamics : Things get worse under pressure.
* Orion”s Law : Everything breaks down.
* The Murphy Philosophy : Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.
* : All great discoveries are made by mistake.
* : Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
* Army Law : If it moves, salute it; if it doesn”t move, pick it up; if you can”t pick it up, paint it.
* Astrology Law : It”s always the wrong time of the month.
* Fourteenth Corollary of Atwood”s General Law of Dynamic Negatives : No books are lost by loaning except those you particularly wanted to keep.
* Avery”s Rule of Three : Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job — it is the start of a brand new series of three.
* Babcock”s Law : If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will break it.
* Baer”s Quartet : What”s good politics is bad economics; what”s bad politics is good economics; what”s good economics is bad politics; what”s bad economics is good politics.
* Baker”s Byroad : When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.
* Baker”s Law : Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
* Baldy”s Law : Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.
* Barr”s Comment on Domestic Tranquility : On a beautiful day like this it”s hard to believe anyone can be unhappy — but we”ll work on it.
* Barth”s Distinction : There are two classes of people: those who divide people into two classes, and those who don”t.
* Bartz”s Law of Hokey Horsepuckery : The more ridiculous a belief system, the higher the probability of its success.
* Baruch”s Rule for Determining Old Age : Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
* Forthoffer”s Cynical Summary of Barzun”s Laws : 1) That which has not yet been taught directly can never be taught directly. 2) If at first you don”t succeed, you will never succeed.
* Baxter”s First Law : Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower national standard of living.
* Law of Cybernetic Entomology : There”s always one more bug.
* Beauregard”s First Law : When you”re up to your nose in it, keep your mouth shut.
* Beauregard”s Second Law : All people are cremated equal.
* Thoughts on Management : If everyone dislikes it, it must be looked into. If everyone likes it, it must be looked into.
* Hunts Law of Suspense : If any work has a suspense date on it, that work will be completed as close to the suspense date as possible regardless of how far in advance it was programmed.
* Belle”s Constant : The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is usually about 0.6.
* Golub”s Laws of Computerdom #1 : A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project will take only twice as long.
* Golub”s Laws of Computerdom #2 : The effort required to correct the error increases geometrically with time.
* Benchley”s Law : Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn”t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
* First Law of Bicycling : No matter which way you ride, it”s uphill and against the wind.
* The Billings Phenomenon : The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious.
* Blaauw”s Law : Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology.
* Blanchard”s Newspaper Obituary Law : If you want your name spelled wrong, die.
* Rules of Pratt #1 : If a severe problem manifests itself, no solution is acceptable unless it is involved, expensive, and time consuming.
* Rules of Pratt #2 : Sufficient monies to do the job correctly the first time are not available, however, ample funds are much easier obtained for repeated revisions.
* Boling”s Postulate : If you”re feeling good, don”t worry. You”ll get over it.
* Bolton”s Law of Ascending Budgets : Under current practices, both expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may be in excess.
* Advanced Systems News Letter : The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
* Boyle”s Observation : A welfare state is one that assumes responsibility for the health, happiness, and general well-being of all its citizens except the taxpayers.
* Boston”s Irreversible Law of Clutter : In any household, junk accumulates to fill the space available for its storage.
* RB”s Five-Thumb Postulate : Experience varies directly with the equipment ruined.
* Lafayette”s Reprisal : The squeaky wheel gets replaced.
* Boob”s Law : You always find something the last place you look.
* Boozer”s Revision : A bird in the hand is dead.
* Borstelmann”s Rule : If everything seems to be coming your way, you”re probably in the wrong lane.
* The Law of Selective Gravity : An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
* 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 value of the carpet.
* Law of the Perversity of Nature : You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
* 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.
* Jones” Law : The man who can smile when things go wrong…has thought of someone he can blame it on.
* First Law of Bridge : It”s always the partner”s fault.
* Brien”s First Law : At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.
* Broder”s Law : Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he”ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
* Brontosaurus Principle : Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology; when this occurs, they are an endangered species.
* Brooks”s First Law : Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
* Brooke”s Second Law : Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
* Bruce-Brigg”s Law of Traffic : At any level of traffic, any delay is intolerable.
* Bucy”s Law : Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
* Thoughts on Programming, Number 52 : The user does not know what he wants until he sees what he gets. -Ed Yourdon
* Radar”s Fundamental Truth : The grass is brown on both sides of the fence.
* Butler”s Law of Progress : All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
* Bye”s First Law of Model Railroading : Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
* Bye”s Second Law of Model Railroading : The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional to the decline of the prototype.
* Pastore”s Truth : Most jobs are marginally better than daytime TV.
* Cahn”s Axiom (Allen”s Axiom) : When all else fails, read the instructions.
* Calkin”s Law of Menu Language : The number of adjectives and verbs that are added to the description of a menu item is in inverse proportion to the quality of the resulting dish.
* John Cameron”s Law : No matter how many times you”ve had it, if it”s offered, take it, because it”ll never be quite the same again.
* Cannon”s Cogent Comment : The leak in the roof is never in the same location as the drip.
* Cavanaugh”s Postulate : All kookies are not in a jar.
* Law of Character and Appearance : People don”t change; they only become more so.
* Checkbook Balancer”s Law : In matters of dispute, the bank”s balance is always smaller than yours.
* Cheop”s Law : Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
* Chesterton”s Observation : I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.
* Chili Cook”s Secret : If your next pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something left out, rather than added.
* 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.
* The First Discovery of Christmas Morning : Batteries not included.
* The First Discovery of Christmas Afternoon : Give a kid a new toy — Dad will play with the toy, the kid will play with the box it came in.
* Etorre”s Observation : The other line always moves faster. Corollary: Don”t try to change lines. The other line–the one you were in originally–will then move faster.
* Faber”s Fourth Law : Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
* Snafu Equation No. 6 : Badness comes in waves.
* The Golden Rule : Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
* The 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).
* Ralph”s Observation : It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry.
* Manly”s Maxim : Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
* Cannon”s Comment : If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.
* Scott”s Second Law : When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been correct in the first place.
* 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.
* 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.
* Gordon”s First Law : If a project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.
* Grierson”s Law of Minimal Self-Delusion : Every man nourishes within himself a secret plan for getting rich that will not work.
* Gumperson”s Law : The probability of anything happening is inversely proportional to its desirability.
* Hoare”s Law of Large Problems : Inside every large problem there is a small problem struggling to get out.
* Finagle”s First Law : If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
* Howe”s Law : Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
* Jones” Motto : Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
* Mahr”s Law of Restrained Involvement : Don”t get any on you.
* Law of Research : Enough research will tend to support your theory.
* Maier”s Law : If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be discarded.
* Munroes Observation : Common sense is not that common.
* Abbott”s Admonitions : 1) If you have to ask, you”re not entitled to know. 2) If you don”t like the answer, you shouldn”t have asked the question.
* Acheson”s Rule of the Bureaucracy : A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
* Acton”s Law : Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
* Airplane Law : When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.
* Agnes Allen”s Law : Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
* Alley”s Axiom : Justice always prevails … three times out of seven.
* Anderson”s Law : I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
* Andrew”s Canoeing Postulate : No matter which direction you start, it”s always against the wind coming back.
* Law of Annoyance : When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you”re certain you”re finished with, you will need it instantly.
* Anthony”s Law of the Workshop : Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. : Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.
* Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules : The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the task takes the other 90%.
* Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations : Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.
* Nowlan”s Truism : An ”acceptable level of unemployment” means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
* : Life sucks–then you die.
* Approval Seeker”s Law : Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
* Finagle”s Second Law : No matter what the experiment”s result, there will always be someone eager to: (a) misinterpret it. (b) fake it. or (c) believe it supports his own pet theory.
* Finagle”s Third Law : In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. Corollaries 1. No one whom you ask for help will see it. 2. Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will see it immediately.
* Finagle”s Fourth Law : Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
* Rudin”s Law : In crises that force people to choose among alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worst one possible.
* Ginsberg”s Restatement of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics : You can”t win. You can”t break even. You can”t quit.
* Ehrman”s Commentary : Things will get worse before they will get better. Who said things would get better*
* Commoner”s Second Law of Ecology : Nothing ever goes away.
* Klipstein”s Law : Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty of assembly.
* : Interchangeable parts won”t.
* : You never find a lost article until you replace it.
* Glatum”s Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness : The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual usefulness once bought and paid for.
* Lewis” Law : No matter how long or hard you shop for an item, after you”ve bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
* : You get the most of what you need the least.
* 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)
* 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.
* Corollary to the First Law of Revision : 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.
* Wyszkowski”s Second Law : Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
* Schmidt”s Law : If you mess with a thing long enough, it”ll break.
* Sattinger”s Law : It works better if you plug it in.
* Lowery”s Law : If it jams – force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
* Anthony”s Law of Force : Don”t force it – get a bigger hammer.
* Peer”s Law : The solution to the problem changes the problem.
* : Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again. :
* Carson”s Law : It”s better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.
* Korman”s Conclusion : The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again.
* Knight”s Law : Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.
* Schmidt”s Observation : All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.
* : Fools rush in where fools have been before.
* Wyszowski”s Law : No experiment is reproducible.
* Fett”s Law : Never replicate a successful experiment.
* The First Myth of Management : It exists.
* : Spend sufficient time confirming the need and the need will disappear.
* Peter”s Placebo : An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
* Zymurgy”s Law of Volunteer Labor : People are always available for work in the past tense.
* Wiker”s Law : Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
* Weiler”s Law : Nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself.
* Hartley”s Second Law : Never go to bed with anybody crazier than you are.
* Beifeld”s Principle : The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, and (3) a better looking and richer male friend.
* Katz”s Law : Men and women will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.
* Cole”s Axiom : The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
* Churchill”s Commentary on Man : Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
* The Ultimate Law : All general statements are false.
* The Whispered Rule : People will believe anything if you whisper it.
* Farnsdick”s Corollary : After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.
* Lynch”s Law : When the going gets tough, everybody leaves.
* Law of Revelation : The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
* Langsam”s Law : Everything depends.
* Hellrung”s Law : If you wait, it will go away. Shevelson”s Extension: … having done its damage. Grelb”s Addition: … if it was bad, it will be back.
* Ducharme”s Precept : Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
* First Postulate of Isomurphism : Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.
* The Unapplicable Law : Washing your car to make it rain doesn”t work.
* Witten”s Law : Whenever you cut your fingernails, you will find a need for them an hour later.
* Perkin”s Postulate : The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
* Harrison”s Postulate : For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
* Conway”s Law : In every organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.
* Stewart”s Law of Retroaction : It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
* First Law of Laboratory Work : Hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass.
* Handy Guide to Modern Science : 1. If it”s green or it wiggles, it”s biology. 2. If it stinks, it”s chemistry. 3. If it doesn”t work, it”s physics.
* The Sausage Principle : People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
* Horngren”s Observation (generalized) : The real world is a special case.
* Merkin”s Maxim : When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.
* Hawkin”s Theory of Progress : Progress does not consist of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong.
* : Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
* Matz”s Warning : Beware of the physician who is great at getting out of trouble.
* Gold”s Law : If the shoe fits, it”s ugly.
* Lewis” Law : People will buy anything that”s one to a customer.
* 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.
* Shirley”s Law : Most people deserve each other.
* : Forgive and remember.
* Galbraith”s Law of Political Wisdom : Anyone who says he is not going to resign, four times, definitely will.
* Bicycle Law : All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 30 pound bicycle needs a 20 pound lock. A 40 pound bicycle needs a 10 pound lock. A 50 pound bicycle doesn”t need a lock.
* Cohen”s Law : What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts, not the facts themselves.
* Comin”s Law : People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
* Gerrold”s Laws of Infernal Dynamics : 1. An object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction. 2. An object at rest will be in the wrong place.
* Langin”s Law : If things were left to chance, they”d be better
* : In America, it”s not how much an item costs that matters, it”s how much you save.
* : If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, maybe you just don”t understand the situation.
* Sevareid”s Law : The chief cause of problems is solutions.
* Thoreau”s Law : If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intention of doing you good, you should run for your life.
* Army Axiom : Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
* Pournelle”s Law of Costs and Schedules : Everything costs more and takes longer.
* Klipstein”s Lament : All warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.
* Klipstein”s Observation : Any product cut to length will be too short.
* Sueker”s Note : If you need n items of anything, you will have n – 1 in stock.
* Rosenfield”s Regret : The most delicate component will be dropped.
* De La Lastra”s Law : After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
* De La Lastra”s Corollary : After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been ommitted.
* Gerrold”s Law : A little ignorance can go a long way.
* Berson”s Corollary of Inverse Distances : The farther away from the entrance that you have to park, the closer the space vacated by the car that pulls away as you walk up to the door.
* Clark”s Law : It”s always darkest just before the lights go out.
* Clyde”s Law : If you have something to do, and put it off long enough, chances are that someone else will do it for you.
* Cole”s Law : Thinly sliced cabbage.
* Cooke”s Law : In any decisive situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision.
* Cornuelle”s Law : Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them.
* Corry”s Law : Paper is always strongest at the perforations.
* Davis”s Basic Law of Medicine : Pills to be taken in twos always come out of the bottle in threes.
* Dieter”s Law : Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories.
* Dude”s Law of Duality : Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.
* Eliot”s Observation : Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
* Old Engineer”s Law : The larger the project or job, the less time there is to to it.
* Fetridge”s Law : Important things that are supposed to happen do not happen, especially when people are looking.
* Finagle”s Laws of Information : 1. The information you have is not what you want. 2. The information you want is not what you need. 3. The information you need is not what you can obtain. 4. The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.
* Flap”s Law : Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or completely mysterious.
* Freeman”s Rule : Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.
* Goodin”s Law of Conversions : The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.
* Gumperson”s Proof : The most undesirable things are the most certain (death and taxes).
* Hardin”s Law : Every time you come up with a terrific idea, you find that someone else thought of it first.
* Herblock”s Law : If it”s good, they”ll stop making it.
* Law of the Individual : Nobody really cares or understands what anyone else is doing.
* Jake”s Law : Anything hit with a big enough hammer will fall apart.
* Jaroslovsky”s Law : The distance you have to park from your apartment increases in proportion to the weight of packages you are carrying.
* Jenkinson”s Law : It won”t work.
* John”s Collateral Corollary : In order to get a loan you must first prove you don”t need it.
* Johnson”s Forst Law : When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient time.
* Johnson-Laird”s Law : Toothache tends to start on Saturday night.
* Klipstein”s Law of Specifications : In specifications, Murphy”s Law supersedes Ohm”s.
* Koppett”s Law : Whatever creates the greatest inconvenience for the largest number must happen.
* Laura”s Law : No child throws up in the bathroom.
* (F)law of Long-Range Planning : The longer ahead you plan a special event, and the more special it is, the more likely it is to go wrong.
* : Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
* Lowrey”s Law of Expertise : Just when you get really good at something, you don”t need to do it any more.
* The Unspeakable Law : As soon as you mention something … – if it”s good, it goes away. – if it”s bad, it happens.