Laurence J. Peter's Quotes

Men now monopolize the upper levels... depriving women of their rightful share of opportunities for incompetence.

Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push, and you push alone.

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

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.

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

It's better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.

Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.

Don't believe in miracles - depend on them.

The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.

Going to church doesn't make you any more a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car.

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.

Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away.

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

America's wealth comes from the efforts of people striving for success. Take away their incentive with badmouthing success and you take away the wealth that helps us take care of the needy.

It seems like people don't learn from the past.

I grew up in a socialist country. And I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom. No pride in achievement.

I paid $1.9 billion in taxes in my lifetime.

My charitable donations go to educational efforts, such as Teach for America, Vanderbilt University, Berkshire School.

Never bend the rules. You bend the rules a little bit and then it's a slippery slope.

Some traders still think that a computer could not trade as well as they can.

The rich support the poor primarily via taxes.

Yes, in socialism the rich will be poorer - but the poor will also be poorer. People will lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs.

You win a few, you lose a few.

I had an extremely boring time doing 20 to 30 trades a day while everyone was talking about baseball or basketball. So I stood there fantasizing about a device that could do the same thing I was doing.

I see no point in exchanging something that I understand, know, love and think will have a great future for something else that I know much less about.