Murphy's laws and corollaries
Murphy's Law Was Invented Here
Jump to Murphy's Military Laws - Murphy's Technology Laws - Murphy's
Love Laws - Murphy's Laws of sex - An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws
- Nothing is as easy as it looks.
- Everything takes longer than you think.
- Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
- If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
- If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
- If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth
way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
- Mother nature is a bitch.
- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
- Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
- Every solution breeds new problems.
- Murphy's Law of Research
- Enough research will tend to support your theory.
- Murphy's Law of Copiers
- The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.
- Murphy's Law of the Open Road:
- When there is a very long road upon which there is a one-way bridge placed at random, and there are only two cars on that road,
it follows that: (1) the two cars are going in opposite directions, and (2) they will always meet at the bridge.
- Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics
- Things get worse under pressure.
- The Murphy Philosophy
- Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.
- Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws
- Everything goes wrong all at once.
- Murphy's Constant
- Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious
- Law of the Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary):
- You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
- Corollary (Jenning):
- The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
- Hill's Commentaries on Murphy's Laws
- If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care.
- If we have nothing to lose by change, relax.
- If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
- If it doesn't matter, it does not matter.
- O'Toole's Commentary
- Murphy was an optimist.
NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law
You never run out of things that can go wrong.
Murphy's Military Laws
- Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are.
- No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
- Friendly fire ain't.
- The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map.
- The problem with taking the easy way out is that the enemy has already mined it.
- The buddy system is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.
- The further you are in advance of your own positions, the more likely your artillery will shoot short.
- Incoming fire has the right of way.
- If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush.
- The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.
- If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.
- The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used on abandoned positions.
- The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
- There is nothing more satisfying that having someone take a shot at you, and miss.
- Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire. Out of the combat zone, it draws sergeants.
- If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
Murphy's Technology Laws
- You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
- Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
- Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands
it beyond recognition.
- Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
- If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
- The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.
- The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.
- An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
- Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll
have to touch to be sure.
- All great discoveries are made by mistake.
- Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
- Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
- All's well that ends.
- A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
- The first myth of management is that it exists.
- A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
- New systems generate new problems.
- To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
- We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
- Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
- The faster a computer is, the faster it will reach a crashed state.
- Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work.
- Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.
- The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.
- To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.
- After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
- Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which
are still under development.
- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
- If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
- Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
- Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
- Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism
will do as it damn well pleases.
- If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
- The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order.
- In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct
total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
- Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.
- All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
- The only perfect science is hind-sight.
- Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
- If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
- If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
- When all else fails, read the instructions.
- If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
- Everything that goes up must come down.
- Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner.
- Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
- Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
- The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
- Any attempt to print Murphy's laws will jam the printer.
Murphy's Love Laws
- All the good ones are taken.
- If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. (corr. to 1)
- The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you.
- Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant.
- The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to how much you love them.
- Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.
- The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.
- Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
- Nice guys(girls) finish last.
- If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
- Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is the minute they find someone else.
Murphy's Laws of sex
- The more beautiful the woman is who loves you, the easier it is to leave her with no hard feelings.
- Nothing improves with age.
- No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
- Sex has no calories.
- Sex takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
- There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
- Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
- No sex with anyone in the same office.
- Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
- A man in the house is worth two in the street.
- If you get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
- Virginity can be cured.
- When a man's wife learns to understand him, she usually stops listening to him.
- Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
- The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can't stand years later.
- Sex is dirty only if it's done right.
- It is always the wrong time of month.
- The best way to hold a man is in your arms.
- When the lights are out, all women are beautiful.
- Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won't either.
- Sow your wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on Sunday pray for crop failure.
- The younger the better.
- The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.
- It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden.
- Sex discriminates against the shy and the ugly.
- Before you find your handsome prince, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs.
- There may be some things better than sex, and some things worse than sex. But there is nothing exactly like it.
- Love your neighbor, but don't get caught.
- Love is a hole in the heart.
- If the effort that went in research on the female bosom had gone into our space program, we would now be running hot-dog stands
on the moon.
- Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
- Do it only with the best.
- Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
- One good turn gets most of the blankets.
- You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
- Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
- Thou shalt not commit adultery.....unless in the mood.
- Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
- Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
- Never argue with a women when she's tired -- or rested.
- A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't.
- What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.
- It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
- Never say no.
- A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn't love her.
- Folks playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
- Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
- Never stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
- A man is only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
- Love comes in spurts.
- The world does not revolve on an axis.
- Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.
- Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
- Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
- There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.
- Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight.
- Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- "This won't hurt, I promise."
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