Sam Rayburn

If you want to get along, go along.

— Sam Rayburn

If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is.

— Sam Rayburn

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

— Sam Rayburn

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

— Sam Rayburn

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

Youll never get mixed up if you simply tell the truth. Then you dont have to remember what you have said, and you never forget what you have said.

— 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. [Applause]

— Sam Rayburn

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

— Sam Rayburn

Too many critics mistake the deliberations of the Congress for its decisions.

— 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.

— 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.

— Sam Rayburn