Laurence J. Peter Quotes

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.

Speak when you are angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.