Laurence Johnston Peter (1919–90) was a Canadian educator and “hierarchiologist”, best known to the general public for the formulation of the Peter Principle. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and began his career as a teacher in Vancouver in 1941. He received the degree of Doctor of Education from Washington State University in 1963.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Laurence J. Peter
There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Humility
Hereditary is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.
—Laurence J. Peter
Don’t believe in miracles—depend on them.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Miracles, Luck
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Intelligence
‘As a matter of fact’ is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn’t.
—Laurence J. Peter
Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish a reputation as an expert.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Experts
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Decisions
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Prejudice, Education
The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Intelligence, Intellectuals
If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Success, Lies, Success & Failure
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Power, Bureaucracy
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Taxes
Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Ability
Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Prejudice
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Innovation, Originality
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Logic, Ignorance
Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Television
The advantage of modern means of communication is they enable you to worry about things in all of the world
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Communication
If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Goals
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents shortcomings.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Psychiatry
Slump, and the world slumps with you. Push, and you push alone.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Effort
If you don’t learn from your mistakes, There’s no point in making them.
—Laurence J. Peter
If a cluttered desk is the sign of an cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Mind
America is a country that doesn’t know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Speed
Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Adversity, Opportunity
Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Imagination
Two can live as cheaply as one – if they both have good jobs.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Jobs
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Bureaucracy
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
—Laurence J. Peter
Speak when you are angry—and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
—Laurence J. Peter
Topics: Speech, Remorse, Regret, Disappointment, Anger
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