Quotes By Laurence J. Peter

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

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

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

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

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

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

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

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

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

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

Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

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

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

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

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

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.

The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.

A man convinced against his will is not convinced.

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

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.

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

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

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

It's better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.

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

Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively.

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

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

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