Laurence Peter Quotes

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

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

The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter.

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

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

Good followers do not become good leaders.

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

The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.

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

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

As individuals we tend to climb to our levels of incompetence. We behave as though up is better and more is better, and yet all around us we see the tragic victims of this mindless escalation.

If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

Any government, whether it is a democracy, a dictatorship, a communistic or free enterprise bureaucracy, will fall when its hierarchy reaches an intolerable state of maturity.

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

He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence.

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

in most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.” He warned that extremely skilled and productive employees often face criticism, and are fired if they don’t start performing worse. Their presence “disrupts and therefore violates the first commandment of hierarchical life: the hierarchy must be preserved.

a staff increase may produce a temporary improvement, but the promotion process eventually produces its effect on the newcomers and they, too, rise to their levels of incompetence.

Don't believe in miracles - depend on them.

In any economic or political crisis, one thing is certain. Many learned experts will prescribe many different remedies

Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going.

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

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

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. Laurence J. Peter (Peter’s Almanac, entry for 24 September 1982)

Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind, Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.    (Ibid., 11. 77–80)

The efficiency of a hierarchy is inversely proportional to its Maturity Quotient, M.Q.    MQ = No. of employees at level of incompetence × 100 Total no. of employees in hierarchy    Obviously, when MQ reaches 100, no useful work will be accomplished at all.

Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence (Peter’s Paradox): they merely gossip about incompetence to mask their envy of employees who have Pull.

Never stand when you can sit; never walk when you can ride; never Push when you can Pull.

the main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.

Seorang yang kompeten dalam level tertentu belum tentu kompeten pada level berikutnya

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

Nobody understands how the incessant pressure from above and the incurable incompetence below make it utterly impossible for me to do an adequate job and keep a clean desk.

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.

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

The more conceited members of the race think in terms of an endless ascent—or promotion ad infinitum. I would point out that, sooner or later, man must reach his level of life-incompetence.

All, from police forces to armed forces, are rigid hierarchies of salaried employees, and all are necessarily cumbered with incompetents who cannot do their existing work, cannot be promoted, yet cannot be removed.

Three Observations        1) The computer may be incompetent in itself—that is, unable to do regularly and accurately the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.        2) Even when competent in itself, the computer vastly magnifies the results of incompetence in its owners or operators.        3) The computer, like a human employee, is subject to the Peter Principle. If it does good work at first, there is a strong tendency to promote it to more responsible tasks, until it reaches its level of incompetence.

If you’ve got your health, you can always make some money. But all the dough in the world can’t buy back your health. Isn’t it clear that the person who compromises his health in the name of making money is cutting himself a really lousy deal?

The computer may be incompetent in itself--that is, unable to do the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.

Dr. Peter observed that one reason so many employees are incompetent is that the skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required to do the job itself. The skills required to run a great political campaign have little to do with the skills required to govern.

One challenge is the Peter Principle. Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book of that name, the Peter Principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain being unable to earn further promotions.

One of the most powerful tools for discovering structure is ‘X-ray diffraction’ or, because it is always applied to crystals of the substance of interest, ‘X-ray crystallography’. The technique has been a gushing fountain of Nobel prizes, starting with Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays (awarded in 1901, the first physics prize), then William and his son Laurence Bragg in 1915, Peter Debye in 1936, and continuing with Dorothy Hodgkin (1964), and culminating with Maurice Wilkins (but not Rosalind Franklin) in 1962, which provided the foundation of James Watson’s and Francis Crick’s formulation of the double-helix structure of DNA, with all its huge implications for understanding inheritance, tackling disease, and capturing criminals (a prize shared with Wilkins in 1962). If there is one technique that is responsible for blending biology into chemistry, then this is it. Another striking feature of this list is that the prize has been awarded in all three scientific categories: chemistry, physics, and physiology and medicine, such is the range of the technique and the illumination it has brought.

By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and elect of God, may he be damn'd. We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him' and make satisfaction. Amen. May the Father who created man, curse him. May the Son who suffered for us curse him. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him May the holy cross which Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him. [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,---but nothing to this.---For my own part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] May St. John the Pre-cursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, damn him May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, damn him. May he be damn'd wherever he be---whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying. May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting! May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body! May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in the hair of his head! May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers! May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach! May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin, in his thighs, in his genitals, and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails! May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no soundness in him! May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him, unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness!

La supercompetencia conduce a menudo al despido, porque transtorna la jerarquía y viola con ello el primer mandamiento de la vida jerárquica, según el cual la jerarquía debe ser preservada.

Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.

Peter Brook’s production with Laurence Olivier as Titus was one of the great theatrical experiences of the 1950s

presidential elections in American history. Jackson's candidacy established a new political party: the Democratic Party. Composer Franz Schubert and painter Francisco Goya died in 1828. Jules Verne, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, and Dante Gabriel Rosetti were born that year. So was Joshua Laurence Chamberlain of Maine. Chamberlain grew up to be president

It is true that work can expand to fill the time allotted but it can expand far beyond that. It can expand beyond the life of the organization and the company can go bankrupt, a government can fall, a civilization can crumble into barbarism, while the incompetents work on.

A political party now exists primarily as an apparatus for selecting candidates and getting them elected to office.

IT SHOULD BE clear by now that when an employee reaches his level of incompetence, he can no longer do any useful work. Incompetent, Yes! Idle, No! This in no way suggests that the ultimate promotion suddenly changes the former worker into an idler. Not at all! In most cases he still wants to work; he still makes a great show of activity; he sometimes thinks he is working. Yet actually little that is useful is accomplished

the ability to charm, to amuse, to inflame a crowd of ten thousand voters with voice and gesture did not necessarily carry with it the ability to think sensibly, to debate soberly and to vote wisely on the nation’s business.

one reason so many employees are incompetent is that the skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required to do the job itself.

true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence.

Man must realize that improvement of the quality of experience is more important than the acquisition of useless artifacts and material possessions.

Wellington, examining the roster of officers assigned to him for the 1810 campaign in Portugal, said, “I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.

In most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.

Thinking & Wisdom: Peter Bevelin, Edward de Bono, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Gilbert, Daniel Kahneman, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Steven Pinker, Tania Singer, Amos Tversky.   Philosophy & Effective Living: James Allen, Stephen Covey, Viktor Frankl, Tamar Gendler’s Open Yale philosophy lectures, Daniel Gilbert, Khalil Gibran, A.C.

The popular 1977 collection Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time by Laurence J. Peter, which happens to be the source of a great many misattributed quotations, it turns out,

Si un escritorio desordenado es signo de una mente desordenada, ¿qué significa un escritorio ordenado? LAURENCE J. PETER

Such an extreme policy will not be generally tolerated. So, to avoid the accumulation of incompetents, administrators have evolved the plan of promoting everyone, the incompetent as well as the competent. They find psychological justification for this policy by saying that it spares students the painful experience of failure.

an employee’s relationship—by blood, marriage or acquaintance—with a person above him in the hierarchy.

Man’s First Mistake: The Wheel

In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence

I am part of all that I have read

La competencia de un empleado no es determinada por los extraños, sino por su superior en la jerarquía.

You will see that in every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours.

If man is going to rescue himself from a future intolerable existence, he must first see where his unmindful escalation is leading him. He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence

W. Irving points out that "Your true dull minds are generally preferred for public employ, and especially promoted to city honors." He did not realize that a mind may well be bright enough for a subordinate position, yet appear dull when promoted to prominence, just as a candle is all very well to light a dinner table, but proves inadequate if placed on a lamppost to illuminate a street corner.

W. Irving points out that "Your true dull minds are generally preferred for public employ, and especially promoted to city honors." He did not realize that a mind may well be bright enough for a subordinate position, yet appear full when promoted to prominence, just as a candle is all very well to light a dinner table, but proves inadequate if placed on a lamppost to illuminate a street corner.

Paper money, virtually unknown in the West until Marco’s return, revolutionized finance and commerce throughout the West. Coal, another item that had caught Marco’s attention in China, provided a new and relatively efficient source of heat to an energy-starved Europe. Eyeglasses (in the form of ground lenses), which some accounts say he brought back with him, became accepted as a remedy for failing eyesight. In addition, lenses gave rise to the telescope—which in turn revolutionized naval battles, since it allowed combatants to view ships at a great distance—and the microscope. Two hundred years later, Galileo used the telescope—based on the same technology—to revolutionize science and cosmology by supporting and disseminating the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun. Gunpowder, which the Chinese had employed for at least three centuries, revolutionized European warfare as armies exchanged their lances, swords, and crossbows for cannon, portable harquebuses, and pistols. Marco brought back gifts of a more personal nature as well. The golden paiza, or passport, given to him by Kublai Khan had seen him through years of travel, war, and hardship. Marco kept it still, and would to the end of his days. He also brought back a Mongol servant, whom he named Peter, a living reminder of the status he had once enjoyed in a far-off land. In all, it is difficult to imagine the Renaissance—or, for that matter, the modern world—without the benefit of Marco Polo’s example of cultural transmission between East and West.

city of faith, the home of the third largest church in the world, after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London

The best record of what befell the explorers comes from the pen of Peter Martyr,

tis the curse of service, Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second Stood heir to the first.

In time I saw that all such cases had a common feature. The employee had been promoted from a position of competence to a position of incompetence. I saw that, sooner or later, this could happen to every employee in every hierarchy.

For each individual, for you, for me, the final promotion is from a level of competence to a level of incompetence.

The obsessive feeling that a person who pushes harder than average deserves to advance farther and faster than average. This feeling, of course, has no scientific basis: it is simply a moralistic delusion

Another familiar saying, this one variously attributed to Laurence J. Peter of The Peter Principle and to Yogi Berra, tells us that if we don’t know where we’re going we’ll probably wind up somewhere else. If you don’t know how to contribute to profitability, you’re unlikely to do so effectively.