Consider any distribution $f(x)$ with standard deviation $\sigma$ and let $x_1, x_2 \cdots x_n$ denote the order statistics in a sample of size $n$ from $f(x).$ Further let $w_n = x_n - x_1$ denote the sample range. Universal upper and lower bounds are derived for the ratio $E(w_n)/\sigma$ for any $f(x)$ for which $a\sigma \leqq x \leqq b\sigma,$ where $a$ and $b$ are given constants. Universal upper bounds are given for $E(x_n)/\sigma$ for the case $- \infty < x < \infty.$ The upper bounds are obtained by adopting procedures of the calculus of variation on lines similar to those used by Plackett [3] and Moriguti [4]. The lower bounds are attained by singular distributions and require the use of special arguments.