“In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table.”

—  H. G. Wells

Attributed to Wells's book New Worlds for Old (1908) by Ferdinand Lundberg in Scoundrels All (1968), p. 126. The quote is widely repeated on the internet, but does not appear in the cited work.
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table." by H. G. Wells?
H. G. Wells photo
H. G. Wells142
English writer 1866–1946

Related quotes

Fergie photo

“We'll play jacks and Uno cards
I'll be your best friend
And you'll be mine”

Fergie (1975) singer from the United States

"Big Girls Don't Cry" (2006), from The Dutchess.

“The best men are those who put their cards on the table when something is bothering them, and if possible do it quietly, not blaming anyone, and if they're faced with a hysterical partner, who is not herself, identify with what she feels even when they can't make head or tail out of what she says.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Tennessee Williams photo

“You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to…
-To lay her cards out on the table.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“Life isn't fair, so you have to play the best game you can with the cards you're dealt.”

Marta Acosta American novelist

Source: Dark Companion

Kay Redfield Jamison photo

“Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they'd been dealt or to the way they had played them.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Samuel Butler photo

“We play out our days as we play out cards, taking them as they come, not knowing what they will be, hoping for a lucky card and sometimes getting one, often getting just the wrong one.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

The World, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

“We face the dilemma… that if everyone gets his deserts, some may be driven from the table: and if everyone comes to the table, some may not get their deserts. In practice, this seems to be resolved by the establishment of a social minimum as reflected for instance, in the poor law, in social security and various welfare sevices. The principle of desert come into play above this social minimun. That is to say, society lays a modest table at which all can sup and a high table at which the deserving can feast”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Boulding (1962) "Social Justice in Social Dynamics", in: R.B. Brandt, ed. Social Justice. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p. 83 as cited in: Toril Aalberg (2003) Achieving Justice: Comparative Public Opinion on Income Distribution. p. 33
1960s

Related topics