Laurence J. Peter Quotes

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

A man convinced against his will is not convinced.

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

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

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

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

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.

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

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

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

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

Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work.

Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Don’t believe in miracles – depend on them.

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.

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

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

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

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.

Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively.

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.

Going to church doesn’t make you any more a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car.

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

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?

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

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

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

It’s better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish a reputation as an expert.

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

Nobody can be perfect unless he admits his faults, but if he has faults how can he be perfect?

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

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

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

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

Speak when you are angry – and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.

Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.

The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.

The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.

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

The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.

There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.

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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