Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

Never offend people with style

when you can offend them with substance.SAM W. BROWN JR.

In 1968, Brown was head of the student campaign for Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota senator who was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. When McCarthy challenged Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, his campaign attracted legions of enthusiastic college students, far-left radicals, and other countercultural types. One of the great triumphs of the campaign was its success in getting many scruffy-looking supporters to shave their beards and dress more conventionally. The never offend people with style saying, with its lovely ironic touch, captured the thinking behind the “Get Clean for Gene” motto. I recently queried Brown about his now-famous saying, and in his reply to me, he said, “By acting on the dictum we actually changed the country.” He also added in his note: It always struck me as downright stupid to ask people to overcome their negative first impression before you could talk to them about important issues. And in the sixties it was pretty easy to offend what was still a very culturally conservative country. So, by the simple expedient of dressing in a more conventional way and not showing up on a doorstep reeking of pot, you had a better chance to engage people in a real discussion about the war, or civil rights, than if they were put off by your appearance.

Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right,

for the minority which is right will one day be the majority.WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

Never tell a lie to a reporter.

Everyone I’ve seen do it has gotten in a helluva lot of trouble.JOSEPH CALIFANO, as Jimmy Carter’s HEW secretary

My first rule for Democrats to live by:

Never just oppose, always propose.JAMES CARVILLE, in his 2003 book Had Enough?

A Handbook for Fighting Back

This was the seventh of “Carville’s Ten Rules for Progressives to Live By.” He added: Every election is a choice, and as progressives, our goal must be to ensure that the choice isn’t between bad and nothing; the choice needs to be between bad and good. We progressives need to define our vision of America, not just react to the right wing’s vision of America.

Never make a defence or apology before you be accused.CHARLES I, King of England, in a 1636 letter to Lord Wentworth

(note that I have retained his original spelling of defence)

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule

never to criticize or attack the government of my own country.

I make up for lost time when I come home.WINSTON CHURCHILL

Churchill said this in 1946, shortly after he had been ousted as prime minister and at a time in his life when he opposed many of the English government’s postwar policies.

Never forget that no military leader

has ever become great without audacity.CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, in On War (1831)

The legendary military theorist added: “If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.”

Never tell anyone to go to hell unless you can make ’em go.BILL CLINTON

In his annual U.S. News & World Report round-up , John Leo called this one of the best aphorisms of 1994. It had been presented earlier that year as one of “Bill Clinton’s Ten Rules of Politics” in Meredith Oakley’s biography On the Make: The Rise of Bill Clinton . The observation is not original to Clinton, however. As far back as the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson had been quoted as saying: “Never tell a man to go to hell unless you’re sure you can send him there.” One other Clinton rule was also phrased neveristically:

Never look past the next election; it might be your last.

Never go out to meet trouble.

If you will just sit still,

nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.CALVIN COOLIDGE, to Theodore Roosevelt Jr. in 1924

Never vote for the best candidate,

vote for the one who will do the least harm.FRANK DANE

Never be haughty to the humble, or humble to the haughty.JEFFERSON DAVIS

This was a personal motto for Davis—the American general who became president of the Confederate States of America—and he offered the thought on many occasions.

Never write anything down,

and never throw away anything that other people have written down.MAUREEN DOWD, in a 1994 column titled

“Thou Shalt Not Leave a Paper Trail”

This originally seemed like an unusual thought from a columnist, but Dowd was writing about politicians. Her dozen “real rules for ambitious courtiers” also included:

Never confuse networking with affection.

Shoot to kill. There’s no such thing as wounding.

And never interfere with your enemy

when he’s in the process of damaging himself.

Perhaps one of the only pieces of advice that I was ever given

was that supplied by an old courtier who observed:

Only two rules really count.

Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself;

never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.EDWARD, DUKE OF WINDSOR, in A King’s Story (1951)

In 1936, King Edward VIII was less than a year into his reign when he abdicated the throne in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. After the royal resignation, he became known as the Duke of Windsor, and she the Duchess. In this passage from his autobiography, he was recalling some advice he received during his brief reign.

Over the years, similar observations have been attributed to other world leaders. The advice to “relieve yourself” also shows up in a famous anecdote involving the man who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. When a journalist asked Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, what motto had served him best in all of his years of military service, Wellington replied by using a naval euphemism for urination:

Never lose an opportunity to pump ship.

In his 2009 biography Churchill , Paul Johnson reported that he was only sixteen when he first met the legendary prime minister in 1946. When Johnson asked, “To what do you attribute your success in life?” Churchill replied:

Conservation of energy.

Never stand up when you can sit down;

and never sit down when you can lie down.

On this side of the Atlantic, former White House press secretary Bill Moyers once said this about his former boss:

Lyndon Johnson taught me two things.

He’d say never pass up a bathroom and never pass up breakfast,

because you’ll never know when you’ll get either again.

Never lose your temper, except intentionally.DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

According to Sherman Adams, White House chief of staff from 1953 to 1958, this was a favorite saying of the thirty-fourth president. It nicely captures the goal of many political and corporate leaders, which is to only express anger strategically, and to never lose control over the emotion (a similar thought from John Wayne appears in the stage & screen chapter). Some of Ike’s other favorite sayings were also expressed neveristically: