The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

—Brooks Atkinson

escape responsibility decisions bureaucracy

About Brooks Atkinson

Portrait of Brooks Atkinson

Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theater critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the Times called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." Atkinson became a Times theater critic in the 1920s...

More quotations from Brooks Atkinson

Poverty is not wholly a personal failure. It also represents the failure of an economic system. And the remedy is not wholly one of charity, but of political and economic action. Poverty is a reflection also on those who are not poor.

—Brooks Atkinson

politics failure poverty social responsibility economics

More quotations tagged with “bureaucracy”

Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines,… but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.

democracy bureaucracy

There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.

—Georges Clemenceau

work passion bureaucracy

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

—Charles Peters

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

—Laurence J. Peter

change bureaucracy status quo inertia

If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.

—Charles Kettering

ideas committees bureaucracy

History

14 Dec 2014 Added