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

About Charles Peters

Portrait of Charles Peters

Charles Given Peters Jr. (December 22, 1926 – November 23, 2023) was an American journalist, editor, and author. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly magazine and the author of We Do Our Part: Toward A Fairer and More Equal America (Random House, 2017). Writing in The...

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

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

—Brooks Atkinson

escape responsibility decisions bureaucracy

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

11 Jul 2015 Added