C. Northcote Parkinson's Quotes

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.

The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.

The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.

Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich.

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.

The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.

Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.

Perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse.

The smaller the function, the greater the management.

Time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body.