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