Laurence J. Peter Quotes

Some Blockett-type employees actually believe that they have received a genuine promotion; others recognize the truth. But the main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.

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

Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.

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

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

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.

Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter.

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

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