Thoughts and Quotes byDr. Laurence J. Peter
Laurence Peter is best known for publishing The Peter Principle, but a bit less known are his dry humored observations about organizations, people, and bureaucracies. Here are some snippets: • An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today. • Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. • Education is a method whereby one acquires higher grade of prejudices. • Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are. • It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time. • Speak when you are angry – and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret. • The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance. • Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. • A man convinced against his will is not convinced. • As a matter of act is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn’t. • Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work. • Don’t believe in miracles – depend of them. • Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively. • Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience. • Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other. • Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. • The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. • There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us. • Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. • 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. • You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes.
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