Laurence J. Peter quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Laurence J. Peter

Laurence J. Peter Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Laurence J. Peter on Wise Famous Quotes.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Don't knock the rich. When did a poor person give you a job?

If we lacked imagination enough to foresee something better, life would indeed be a tragedy.

Poetry is that which is lost in translation.

Every man serves a useful purpose: a miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.

There are more pretty photographs of women than there are photographs of pretty women.

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status

Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything.

Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively.

The surest sign that you haven't any sense is to argue with one who hasn't.

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

Marriage is a good deal like taking a bath-not so hot once you get accustomed to it.

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.

There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought

The man who is always waving the flag usually waives what it stands for.

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

A true friend will see you through when others see that you are through.

Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings.

It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest.

Lead, follow or get of the way

A bore is a person who lights up the room simply by leaving it.

An employee's relationship - by blood, marriage or acquaintance - with a person above him in the hierarchy.

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.

The advantage of modern means of communication is they enable you to worry about things in all of the world

The cave-dweller's wife complained that he hadn't dragged her anywhere in months.

A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of every paper before he destroys it.

Middle age is when it takes longer to rest than to get tired.

When I want your opinion I'll give it to you.

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?

If you can't keep up, drag them down to your level.

A man convinced against his will is not convinced.

Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish a reputation as an expert.

Man's First Mistake: The Wheel

We hate to have some people give us advice because we know how badly they need it themselves.

May your happiest days of the past be your saddest days of your future.

You don't need to take a persons advice to make him feel good, just ask him for it.

The habitually punctual make all their mistakes right on time.

In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.

Give a child enough rope and he will trip you up.

They lead only as the carved wooden figurehead leads the ship.

My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying.

Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away.

The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.

Incompetence," he argued, "knows no barrier of time or place.

As the farmer said, I'm not greedy, all I want is the land next to mine.

Noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it.

Peter's Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence.

An optimist is one who makes the best of it when he gets the worst of it.

Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work.

When a person puts his best foot forward and gets it stepped on, that's life.

The devil could change. He was once an angel and may be evolving still.

Fools rush in where wise men fear to trade.

Don't worry about middle age: you'll outgrow it.

Given enough time - and assuming the existence of enough ranks in the hierarchy - each employee rises to, and remains at, his level of incompetence.

Good followers do not become good leaders.

Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street.

In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change.

If you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, you don't need advice.

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.

Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.

If at first you don't succeed, you may be at your level of incompetence already.

If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

Bore : A fellow who can change the subject back to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours.

Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

The reason crime doesn't pay is that when it does, it is called a more respectable name.

A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out.

Ignorance is the mother of research.

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter.

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

Many a man, under the old and the new systems, has made the upward step from candidate to legislator, only to achieve his level of incompetence.

Home is where the college student home for the holidays isn't.

Ignorance once dispelled is difficult to reestablish.

There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.

Before publishers' blurbs were invented, authors had to make their reputations by writing.

A free press is one that prints a dictator's speech but doesn't have to.

I inherited my ability from both parents; my mother's ability for spending money, and my father's ability for not earning it.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

The machinery of government is a vast series of interlocking hierarchies riddled through and through with incompetence.

Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push and you push alone.

The unexpected always happens.

Cleaning anything involves making something else dirty, but anything can get dirty without something else getting clean.

Scientists are still trying to produce life in the laboratory, but it shouldn't be difficult if the laboratory assistant is pretty and willing.

He laughs best whose laugh lasts.

Don't believe in miracles - depend on them.

Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are.

Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.

Nobody can be perfect unless he admits his faults, but if he has faults how can he be perfect?

There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.

The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.

Computers can solve all kinds of problems except the unemployment problem they create.

You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.

There are some men who in a fifty-fifty proposition insist on getting the hyphen too.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

Only mediocrities rise to the top in a system that won't tolerate wave making.

A lawyer is a man who helps you get what is coming to him.

It usually takes two people to make one of them angry.