Quotes: Bureaucracy, Bureaucrats, Part 2

(an agency where after all is said and done, more is said than done.)


Quotations

The nearest thing to immortality in this world is a government bureau.
—General Hugh S. Johnson

A bureaucrat’s idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of every paper before he destroys it.
—Laurence J. Peter

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
—Laurence J. Peter

We trained hard . . . but every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing . . . and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing inefficiency and demoralization.
—Petronius (died A.D. 66)

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies [mental pygmies, that is].
—Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)

Guidelines for Bureaucrats: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble.
—James H. Boren

I do not rule Russia: ten thousand clerks do.
—Czar Nicholas I (1796-1855)

bureaucracy: 1. Where the civil servant is the uncivil master.
2. Government of some of the people, by some of the people, for some of the people.
—Evan Esar, Esar’s Comic Dictionary

bureaucrat: 1. A red tapeworm.
2. A government official whose job someone else wants.
—Evan Esar, Esar’s Comic Dictionary

Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.
—Javier Pascual Salcedo

In a bureaucracy, they shoot the bull, pass the buck, and make seven copies of everything.
—E. C. McKenzie

Bureaucrats live on the fat of the land, while the rest of us stay skinny laboring to pay their salaries.
—E. C. McKenzie


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