Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
Laurence J. PeterRead
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Bureaucracy often protects outdated systems and practices even when they are no longer effective.
This quote by Laurence J. Peter highlights how bureaucratic structures can become resistant to change, maintaining outdated systems and practices long after they have ceased to be relevant or beneficial. It suggests that such rigidity can hinder progress and adaptation, making it difficult for organizations and societies to evolve in response to new challenges and realities.
Themes
BureaucracyStatus QuoChangeProgressResistance
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about organizational reform, one might say, 'As Laurence J. Peter noted, bureaucracy defends the status quo long past its prime, reminding us to embrace change.'
More from Laurence J. Peter
All quotes βThere are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought
Laurence J. PeterRead
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
Laurence J. PeterRead
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
Laurence J. PeterRead
Peter's Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence.
Laurence J. PeterRead
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
Laurence J. PeterRead
Similar quotes
Some stories, sheβd say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.
Chuck PalahniukRead
Peace as a positive condition of society, not merely as an interim between wars, is something so unknown that it casts no images on the mind's screen.
Denise LevertovRead
Whites often respond defensively when linked to other whites as a group or 'accused' of collectively benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is 'different' from any other white person and expects to be seen as such.
Robin DiangeloRead
If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.
Fulton J. SheenRead
The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.
Franz KafkaRead
If it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion
Frank OceanRead