Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Laurence J. Peter, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Laurence J. Peter quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 151 Laurence J. Peter quotes for you to read and share.
Many an optimist has become rich simply by buying out a pessimist. -- Laurence J. Peter
An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to. -- Laurence J. Peter
Don't believe in miracles - depend on them. -- Laurence J. Peter
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it. -- Laurence J. Peter
If you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, you don't need advice. -- Laurence J. Peter
Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push and you push alone. -- Laurence J. Peter
Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter. -- Laurence J. Peter
The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it. -- Laurence J. Peter
It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest. -- Laurence J. Peter
Scientists are still trying to produce life in the laboratory, but it shouldn't be difficult if the laboratory assistant is pretty and willing. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
We are members of a strange species that devotes its energies to climbing the ladder of success in order to make money to buy things we don't like. -- Laurence J. Peter
Going to church doesn't make you any more a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car. -- Laurence J. Peter
All science is concerned with the relationship of cause and effect. Each scientific discovery increases man's ability to predict the consequences of his actions and thus his ability to control future events. -- Laurence J. Peter
If you can't keep up, drag them down to your level. -- Laurence J. Peter
Don't knock the rich. When did a poor person give you a job? -- Laurence J. Peter
Man's First Mistake: The Wheel -- Laurence J. Peter
In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. -- Laurence J. Peter
Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small. -- Laurence J. Peter
Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
A lawyer is a man who helps you get what is coming to him. -- Laurence J. Peter
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. -- Laurence J. Peter
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience. -- Laurence J. Peter
Home is where the college student home for the holidays isn't. -- Laurence J. Peter
Two can live as cheaply as one - if they both have good jobs. -- Laurence J. Peter
Everyone is in awe of the lion tamer in a cage with half a dozen lions-everyone but a school bus driver. -- Laurence J. Peter
Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively. -- Laurence J. Peter
My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying. -- Laurence J. Peter
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent. -- Laurence J. Peter
Don't worry about middle age: you'll outgrow it. -- Laurence J. Peter
If we lacked imagination enough to foresee something better, life would indeed be a tragedy. -- Laurence J. Peter
The machinery of government is a vast series of interlocking hierarchies riddled through and through with incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings. -- Laurence J. Peter
Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away. -- Laurence J. Peter
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
Marriage is a good deal like taking a bath-not so hot once you get accustomed to it. -- Laurence J. Peter
You shouldn't punish others for your own choices. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -- Laurence J. Peter
Ignorance is the mother of research. -- Laurence J. Peter
Many live by their wits but few by their wit. -- Laurence J. Peter
Poetry is that which is lost in translation. -- Laurence J. Peter
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one. -- Laurence J. Peter
The surest sign that you haven't any sense is to argue with one who hasn't. -- Laurence J. Peter
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. -- Laurence J. Peter
There are more pretty photographs of women than there are photographs of pretty women. -- Laurence J. Peter
They lead only as the carved wooden figurehead leads the ship. -- Laurence J. Peter
There are some men who in a fifty-fifty proposition insist on getting the hyphen too. -- Laurence J. Peter
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. -- Laurence J. Peter
Bore : A fellow who can change the subject back to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours. -- Laurence J. Peter
A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of every paper before he destroys it. -- Laurence J. Peter
Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object. -- Laurence J. Peter
A free press is one that prints a dictator's speech but doesn't have to. -- Laurence J. Peter
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. -- Laurence J. Peter
Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish a reputation as an expert. -- Laurence J. Peter
An employee's relationship - by blood, marriage or acquaintance - with a person above him in the hierarchy. -- Laurence J. Peter
We hate to have some people give us advice because we know how badly they need it themselves. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
I inherited my ability from both parents; my mother's ability for spending money, and my father's ability for not earning it. -- Laurence J. Peter
The reason crime doesn't pay is that when it does, it is called a more respectable name. -- Laurence J. Peter
The advantage of modern means of communication is they enable you to worry about things in all of the world -- Laurence J. Peter
Prejudice is one of the world's greatest labor-saving devices; it enables you to form an opinion without having to dig up the facts. -- Laurence J. Peter
A bore is a person who lights up the room simply by leaving it. -- Laurence J. Peter
Egypt: Where the Israelites would still be if Moses had been a bureaucrat. -- Laurence J. Peter
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed king can still goof up. -- Laurence J. Peter
Middle age is when anything new in the way you feel is most likely a symptom. -- Laurence J. Peter
Do it now. There may be a law against it tomorrow. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
There are two sorts of losers - the good loser, and the one who can't act. -- Laurence J. Peter
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
Every man serves a useful purpose: a miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor. -- Laurence J. Peter
As the farmer said, I'm not greedy, all I want is the land next to mine. -- Laurence J. Peter
When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation. -- Laurence J. Peter
Middle age is when you stop criticizing the older generation and start criticizing the younger one. -- Laurence J. Peter
A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out. -- Laurence J. Peter
The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. -- Laurence J. Peter
Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work. -- Laurence J. Peter
America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there. -- Laurence J. Peter
Noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it. -- Laurence J. Peter
The efficiency of a hierarchy is inversely proportional to its Maturity Quotient, M.Q. MQ = No. of employees at level of incompetence x 100 Total no. of employees in hierarchy Obviously, when MQ reaches 100, no useful work will be accomplished at all. -- Laurence J. Peter
It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time. -- Laurence J. Peter
You could generally inform a real close friend: when you have manufactured a idiot of on your own he does not truly feel you've finished a long lasting job. -- Laurence J. Peter
Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are? -- Laurence J. Peter
A true friend will see you through when others see that you are through. -- Laurence J. Peter
Reality is for people who can't face drugs. -- Laurence J. Peter
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street. -- Laurence J. Peter
Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are. -- Laurence J. Peter
Cleaning anything involves making something else dirty, but anything can get dirty without something else getting clean. -- Laurence J. Peter
The devil could change. He was once an angel and may be evolving still. -- Laurence J. Peter
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status -- Laurence J. Peter
The cave-dweller's wife complained that he hadn't dragged her anywhere in months. -- Laurence J. Peter
The habitually punctual make all their mistakes right on time. -- Laurence J. Peter
He laughs best whose laugh lasts. -- Laurence J. Peter
When I want your opinion I'll give it to you. -- Laurence J. Peter
When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout. -- Laurence J. Peter
Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other. -- Laurence J. Peter
Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it. -- Laurence J. Peter
The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep. -- Laurence J. Peter
Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. -- Laurence J. Peter
There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought -- Laurence J. Peter
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? -- Laurence J. Peter
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. -- Laurence J. Peter
Incompetence," he argued, "knows no barrier of time or place. -- Laurence J. Peter
If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a camel - anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform effectively under such difficult conditions. -- Laurence J. Peter
Computers can solve all kinds of problems except the unemployment problem they create. -- Laurence J. Peter
As a matter of fact is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn't. -- Laurence J. Peter
Fools rush in where wise men fear to trade. -- Laurence J. Peter
When a person puts his best foot forward and gets it stepped on, that's life. -- Laurence J. Peter
The unexpected always happens. -- Laurence J. Peter
Give a child enough rope and he will trip you up. -- Laurence J. Peter
Peter's Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know. -- Laurence J. Peter
The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance. -- Laurence J. Peter
The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure. -- Laurence J. Peter
Middle age is when the best exercise is one of discretion. -- Laurence J. Peter
Nobody can be perfect unless he admits his faults, but if he has faults how can he be perfect? -- Laurence J. Peter
It usually takes two people to make one of them angry. -- Laurence J. Peter
Middle age is when it takes longer to rest than to get tired. -- Laurence J. Peter
Before publishers' blurbs were invented, authors had to make their reputations by writing. -- Laurence J. Peter
When a New Yorker looks like he has a suntan, it's probably rust. -- Laurence J. Peter
An optimist is one who makes the best of it when he gets the worst of it. -- Laurence J. Peter
Men now monopolize the upper levels ... depriving women of their rightful share of opportunities for incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. -- Laurence J. Peter
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it. -- Laurence J. Peter
If at first you don't succeed, you may be at your level of incompetence already. -- Laurence J. Peter
In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties. -- Laurence J. Peter
The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance. -- Laurence J. Peter
Given enough time - and assuming the existence of enough ranks in the hierarchy - each employee rises to, and remains at, his level of incompetence. -- Laurence J. Peter
The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. -- Laurence J. Peter
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. -- Laurence J. Peter
You don't need to take a persons advice to make him feel good, just ask him for it. -- Laurence J. Peter
Lead, follow or get of the way -- Laurence J. Peter
May your happiest days of the past be your saddest days of your future. -- Laurence J. Peter
A man convinced against his will is not convinced. -- Laurence J. Peter
Only mediocrities rise to the top in a system that won't tolerate wave making. -- Laurence J. Peter
There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us. -- Laurence J. Peter
Good followers do not become good leaders. -- Laurence J. Peter
The man who is always waving the flag usually waives what it stands for. -- Laurence J. Peter
Ignorance once dispelled is difficult to reestablish. -- Laurence J. Peter
If the outcome is good, what's the difference between motives that sound good and good, sound motives? -- Laurence J. Peter