Quotes from C. Northcote Parkinson

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

It is now well known, however, that men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

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

Imagination is essential and it comes first, for without imagination we are aimless.

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

The basic quality for the diplomat is not intelligence but loyalty.

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

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

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

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.

Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available.

It is the busiest man who has time to spare.

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

Expenditures rise to meet income.

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

The smaller the function, the greater the management.

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.

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

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

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

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

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