Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.
Laurence J. Peter
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Laurence J. Peter
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
Laurence J. Peter
Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively.
Laurence J. Peter
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
Laurence J. Peter
Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push, and you push alone.
Laurence J. Peter
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
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
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
There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.
Laurence J. Peter
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.
Laurence J. Peter
Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.
Laurence J. Peter
Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away.
Laurence J. Peter
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents’ shortcomings.
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
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
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
Laurence J. Peter
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
Laurence J. Peter
If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
Laurence J. Peter
Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.
Laurence J. Peter
It’s better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.
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
When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.
Laurence J. Peter
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street.
Laurence J. Peter
Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
Laurence J. Peter
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.
Laurence J. Peter
Speak when you are angry – and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
Laurence J. Peter
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
Laurence J. Peter
A man doesn’t know what he knows until he knows what he doesn’t know.
Laurence J. Peter
The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.
Laurence J. Peter
As a matter of fact is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn’t.
Laurence J. Peter
Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish a reputation as an expert.
Laurence J. Peter
Men now monopolize the upper levels… depriving women of their rightful share of opportunities for incompetence.
Laurence J. Peter
The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.
Laurence J. Peter
Don’t believe in miracles – depend on them.
Laurence J. Peter
Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.
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
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
Laurence J. Peter
The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.
Laurence J. Peter
A man convinced against his will is not convinced.
Laurence J. Peter
If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three.
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
Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.
Laurence J. Peter
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Laurence J. Peter
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
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
