Murphy's Laws: The Ultimate Guide to Life's Inevitable Humor.

Darwin's Observation: Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.

Dave's Law of Advice: Those with the best advice offer no advice.

Dave's Rule of Street Survival: Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.

Davidson's Maxim: Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves.

Davis's Basic Law of Medicine: Pills to be taken in twos always come out of the bottle in threes.

de la Lastra's Law: After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.

de la Lastra's Corollary: After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been ommitted.

Deadlock's Law: If the law-makers make a compromise, the place where it will be felt most is the taxpayer's pocket.
Corollary: The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.

Dean's Law of the District of Columbia: Washington is a much better place if you are asking questions rather than answering them.

First Law of Debate: Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

Decaprio's Rule: Everything takes more time and money.

Deitz's Law of Ego: The fury engendered by the misspelling of a name in a column is in direct ratio to the obscurity of the mentionee.

Dennis's Principles of Management by Crisis:

To get action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted upon.
Management will select actions or events and convert them to crises. It will then over-react.
Management is incapable of recognizing a true crisis.
The squeaky hinge gets the oil.

Dhawan's Laws for the Non-Smoker:

The cigarette smoke always drifts in the direction of the non-smoker regardless of the direction of the breeze.
The amount of pleasure derived from a cigarette is directly proportional to the number of non-smokers in the vicinity.
A smoker is always attracted to the non-smoking section.
The life of a cigarette is directly proportional to the intensity of the protests from non-smokers.

Dieter's Law: Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories.

Dijkstra's Prescription for Programming Inertia: If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it.

Diogenes's First Dictum: The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has to escape being taxed.
Diogenes's Second Dictum: If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably will.

Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics:

Get elected.
Get re-elected.
Don't get mad -- get even.

Principle of Displaced Hassle: To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem.

Donohue's Law: Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

Donsen's Law: The specialist learns more and more about less and less until, finally, he knows everything about nothing; whereas the generalist learns less and less about more and more until, finally, he knows nothing about everything.

Laws of Dormitory Life:

The amount of trash accumulated within the space occupied is exponentially proportional to the number of living bodies that enter and leave within any given amount of time.
Since no matter can be created or destroyed (excluding nuclear and cafeteria substances), as one attempts to remove unwanted material (i.e., trash) from one's living space, the remaining material mutates so as to occupy 30 to 50 percent more than its original volume.
Corollary: Dust breeds.
The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's roommate will have the earliest possible classes.
Corollary 1: One's roommate (who has early classes) has an alarm clock that is louder than God's own.
Corollary 2: When one has an early class, one's roommate will invariably enter the space late at night and suddenly become hyperactive, ill, violent, or all three.

Douglas's Law of Practical Aeronautics: When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly.

Dow's Law: In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion.

Dror's First Law: While the difficulties and dangers of problems tend to increase at a geometric rate, the knowledge and manpower qualified to deal with these problems tend to increase linearly.
Dror's Second Law: While human capacities to shape the environment, society, and human beings are rapidly increasing, policymaking capabilities to use those capacities remain the same.

Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

Dude's Law of Duality: Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.

Dunne's Law: The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.

Dunn's Discovery: The shortest measurable interval of time is the time between the moment one puts a little extra aside for a sudden emergency and the arrival of that emergency.

Durant's Discovery: One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Durrell's Parameter: The faster the plane, the narrower the seats.

Dyer's Law: A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.

Economists' Laws:
What men learn from history is that men do not learn from history.
If on an actuarial basis there is a 50-50 chance that something will go wrong, it will actually go wrong nine times out of ten.

Edington's Theory: The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.

Law of Editorial Correction: Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.

Ehrlich's Rule: The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.

Ehrman's Commentary: Things will get worse before they will get better. Who said things would get better?

Eliot's Observation: Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Ellenberg's Theory: One good turn gets most of the blanket.

Emerson's Insight: That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

Old Engineer's Law: The larger the project or job, the less time there is to do it.

The "Enough Already" Law: The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.

Extended Epstein-Heisenberg Principle: In an R & D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3 parameters can be defined simultaneously. The parameters are: task, time, and resources ($). 1) If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will cost. 2) If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is impossible to know what part of the R & D task will be performed. 3) If you are given a clearly defined R & D goal and a definte amount of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached. 4) If one is lucky enough to be able to accurately define all three parameters, then what one is dealing with is not in the realm of R & D.

Epstein's Law: If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.

Ettorre's Observation: The other line moves faster.

Corollary: Don't try to change lines. The other line -- the one you were in originally -- will then move faster.

Evans's Law of Politics: When team members are finally in a position to help the team, it turns out they have quit the team.

Evelyn's Rules for Bureaucratic Survival:

A bureaucrat's castle is his desk . . . and parking place. Proceed cautiously when changing either.
On the theory that one should never take anything for granted, follow up on everything, but especially those items varying from the norm. The greater the divergence from normal routine and/or the greater the number of offices potentially involved, the better the chance a never-to-be-discovered person will file the problem away in a drawer specifically designed for items requiring a decision.
Never say without qualification that your activity has sufficient space, money, staff, etc.
Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are there to serve you. "Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size and make demands on you out of proportion to their service, and in the end require more effort on your part than their service is worth.
Corollary: Support organizations can always prove success by showing service to someone . . . not necessarily you.
Incompetents often hire able assistants.

Everitt's Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society. Only if someone or something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in a limited region. Nevertheless, this effort will stil result in an increase in the total confusion of society at large.

Eve's Discovery: At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like best and that fits is the one not on sale.
Adam's Corollary: It's easy to tell when you've got a bargain -- it doesn't fit.

Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations:
Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.

First Law of Expert Advice: Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut.

Faber's Laws:
If there isn't a law, there will be.
The number of errors in any piece of writing rises in proportion to the writer's reliance on secondary sources.

Fairfax's Law: Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the desired result, are fair facts for the argument.

Falkland's Rule: When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.

Farber's First Law: Give him an inch and he'll screw you.
Farber's Second Law: A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.
Farber's Third Law: We're all going down the same road in different directions.
Farber's Fourth Law: Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

Farnsdick's corollary: After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.

Farrow's Finding: If God had intended for us to go to concerts, He would have given us tickets.

Law of Fashion: Any given dress is: indecent 10 years before its time, daring 1 year before its time, chic in its time, dowdy 3 years after its time, hideous 20 years after its time, amusing 30 years after its time, romantic 100 years after its time, and beautiful 150 years after its time.

Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.