“Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.”
Source: Chapterhouse: Dune
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Frank Herbert 158
American writer 1920–1986Related quotes
“Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser.”
“Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.”
“Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser.”
Source: As quoted in "One Hard Way to Make a Living" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/05/04/one-hard-way-to-make-a-living by Roger Angell, in The New Yorker (May 4, 1981), p. 96; reprinted in Late Innings (1982) by Roger Angell, p. 358
“Show me a person who doesn't have a past and I'll show you a boring bastard”
Source: Last Chance Saloon
“You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker”
“Show me a poet, and I'll show you a shit.”
The New Yorker, March 28, 1953, quoted in David Remnick, "Reporting It All: A.J. Liebling at 100", The New Yorker, March 29, 2004.
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 11 “Sayshell” section 3, p. 205
Source: Foundation's Edge
Context: Pelorat sighed. “I will never understand people.”
“There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.”
“Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure.”
Attribution to Rockne sometime in the 1920s mentioned in Safire's Political Dictionary (2008) by William Safire, p. 401, but there is no definite mention of this yet located prior to the 1980s; in The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro, a similar remark is credited to Arnold "Red" Auerbach, based on a 1965 citation in the Mansfield News Journal [Ohio]: "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."
Disputed