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

Cannon's Comment: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

Carson's Law It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.

Cartoon Laws:

Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout- perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self- replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.

Cavanaugh's Postulate: All kookies are not in a jar.

Law of Character and Appearance: People don't change; they only become more so.

Checkbook Balancer's Law: In matters of dispute, the bank's balance is always smaller than yours.

Cheops's Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Chili Cook's Secret: If your next pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something left out, rather than added.

Chisholm's First Law and Corollary: see Murphy's Third and Fifth Laws.
Chisholm's Second Law: When things are going well, something will go wrong.
Corollaries:
When things just can't get any worse, they will.
Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
Chisholm's Third Law: Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others.
Corollaries:
If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
If you do something which you are sure will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like it.
Procedures devised to implement the purpose won't quite work.
No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.

The First Discovery of Christmas Morning: Batteries not included.

Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on as though nothing has happened.

Ciardi's Poetry Law: Whenever in time, and wherever in the universe, any man speaks or writes in any detail about the technical management of a poem, the resulting irascibility of the reader's response is a constant.

Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Corollary (Asimov): When the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right.

Clarke's Second Law: The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas: Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
"It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
"I said it was a good idea all along."

Clark's First Law of Relativity: No matter how often you trade dinner or other invitations with in-laws, you will lose a small fortune in the exchange.
Corollary: Don't try it: you cannot drink enough of your in-laws' booze to get even before your liver fails.

Clark's Law: It's always darkest just before the lights go out.

Cleveland's Highway Law: Highways in the worst need of repair naturally have low traffic counts, which results in low priority for repair work.

Clopton's Law: For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill.

Clyde's Law: If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you.

Cohen's Law: What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.

Cohen's Laws of Politics:

Law of Alienation: Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
Law of Ambition: At any one time, thousands of borough councilmen, school board members, attorneys, and businessmen -- as well as congressmen, senators, and governors -- are dreaming of the White House, but few, if any of them, will make it.
Law of Attraction: Power attracts people but it cannot hold them.
Law of Competition: The more qualified candidates who are available, the more likely the compromise will be on the candidate whose main qualification is a nonthreatening incompetence.
Law of Inside Dope: There are many inside dopes in politics and government.
Law of Lawmaking: Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
Law of Permanence: Political power is as permanent as today's newspaper. Ten years from now, few will know or care who the most powerful man in any state was today.
Law of Secrecy: The best way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide it.
Law of Wealth: Victory goes to the candidate with the most accumulated or contributed wealth who has the financial resources to convince the middle class and poor that he will be on their side.
Law of Wisdom: Wisdom is considered a sign of weakness by the powerful because a wise man can lead without power but only a powerful man can lead without wisdom.

Cohn's Law: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.

Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.

Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.

Colson's Law: If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

Comins's Law: People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

Committee Rules:

Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.
Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others.
When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology:
No action is without side-effects.
Nothing ever goes away.
There is no free lunch.

Law of Computability: Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

Law of Computability Applied to Social Science: If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

Laws of computer programming:

Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any given program costs more and takes longer.
If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
Any program will expand to fill available memory.
The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain it.
Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.

First Maxim of Computers: To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.

Connolly's Law of Cost Control: The price of any product produced for a government agency will be not less than the square of the initial Firm Fixed-Price Contract.

Connolly's Rule for Political Incumbents: Short-term success with voters on any side of a given issue can be guaranteed by creating a long-term special study commission made up of at least three divergent interest groups.

Conrad's Conundrum: Technologie don't transfer.

Considine's Law: Whenever one word or letter can change the entire meaning of a sentence, the probability of an error being made will be in direct proportion to the embarrassment it will cause.

Conway's Law 1: If you assign N persons to write a compiler you'll get a N-1 pass compiler.

Conway's Law 2: In every organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

Cooke's Law: In any decisive situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision.

Cook's Law: Much work, much food; little work, little food; no work, burial at sea.

Coolidge's Immutable Observation: When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

Cooper's Law: All machines are amplifiers.

Cooper's Metalaw: A proliferation of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes.

Mr. Cooper's Law: If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it.

Corcoroni's Laws of Bus Transportation:

The bus that left the stop just before you got there is your bus.
The amount of time you have to wait for a bus is directly proportional to the inclemency of the weather.
All buses heading in the opposite direction drive off the face of the earth and never return.
The last rush-hour express bus to your neighborhood leaves five minutes before you get off work.
Bus schedules are arranged so your bus will arrive at the transfer point precisely one minute after the connecting bus has left.
Any bus that can be the wrong bus will be the wrong bus. All others are out of service or full.

Cornuelle's Law: Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them.

Corry's Law: Paper is always strongest at the perforations.

Courtois's Rule: If people listened to themselves more often, they'd talk less.

Crane's Law (Friedman's Reiteration): There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ("tanstaafl")

Mark Miller's Exception to Crane's Law: There are no "free lunches", but sometimes it costs more to collect money than to give away food.

Crane's Rule: There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.

Cripp's Law: When traveling with children on one's holidays, at least one child of any number of children will request a rest room stop exactly halfway between any two given rest areas.

Cropp's Law: The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office.

Culshaw's First Principle of Recorded Sound: Anything, no matter how bad, will sound good if played back at a very high level for a short time.

Cutler Webster's Law: There are two sides to every argument unless a man is personally involved, in which case there is only one.

Czecinski's Conclusion: There is only one thing worse than dreaming you are at a conference and waking to find that you are at a conference, and that is the conference where you can't fall asleep.

Darrow's Observation: History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.