We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages.

It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them.

Following the rules doesn’t create success; it just eliminates extremes

Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.

If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?

You get the idea. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it's because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. It's the greatest thrill in the world and it runs away screaming at the first sight of bullet points.

It is easy to be wise after the event.

A rule is a way of structuring awareness.

Learn and obey the rules very well so you will know how to break them properly.

Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless — or even actually harmful.

I play by the rules even when there aren’t any.

When you don’t have much time, a routine helps you make the little time you have count. When you have all the time in the world, a routine helps you make sure you don’t waste it.

You find it so easy to be smart that you don’t bother to work very hard

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” — Pablo Picasso