Laurence J. Peter Quotes - Page 4

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

Men now monopolize the upper levels... depriving women of their rightful share of opportunities for incompetence.

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

If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.

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

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

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

Ignorance once dispelled is difficult to reestablish.

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

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.

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

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

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

A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.

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

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

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

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

Most hierarchies are nowadays so cumbered with rules and traditions, and so bound in by public laws, that even high employees do not have to lead anyone anywhere, in the sense of pointing out the direction and setting the pace. They simply follow precedents, obey regulations, and move at the head of the crowd. Such employees lead only in the sense that the curved wooden figurehead leads the ship .

Ignorance is the mother of research.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.

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

As a matter of fact is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn't.

Middle age is when anything new in the way you feel is most likely a symptom.

Many live by their wits but few by their wit.