To know where you can find a thing is the chief part of learning.
—Unknown
Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Literary Critic, Essayist
The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
In a world where the outrageous has become the norm, stable organizations make no sense.
—Unknown
We trained hard-but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
—Petronius (c.27–66 CE) Roman Courtier, Novelist
Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874–1956) American Business Executive
Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
—Colin Powell (1937–2021) American Military Leader
If a better system is thine, impart it; if not, make use of mine.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction, and malperformance.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
The foolish think that nothing is well done, except that which they do themselves.
—Unknown
Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.
—Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Jurist
Organizations that remain vital show their new employees that they are needed. At the same time, they never forget the value of their long-service employees. And they always give both a second chance.
—Unknown
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Historian, Political Leader, Explorer
Organization is the enemy of improvisation.
—Unknown
Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state.—As the beams to a house, as the bones to the body, so is order to all things.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
It is necessary to have party organization if we are to have effective and efficient government. The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization, and the only difference between a disorganized country and one that has the advantage of a wise and sound government is fundamentally a question of organization.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
It isn’t the incompetent who destroy an organization. It is those who have achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up.
—Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968) Danish-American Industrialist
The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
The new organization is edgeless, permeable, amorphous… constantly re-forming according to need.
—Unknown
Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
—A. A. Milne (1882–1956) British Humorist, Playwright, Children’s Writer
Albrecht’s Law – Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.
—Karl Albrecht (1920–2014) German Retail Businessman
In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) British Essayist, Historian
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
—Isabella Beeton (1836–65) British Food Writer
Any consideration of the life and larger social existence of the modern corporate man begins and also largely ends with the effect of one all-embracing force. That is organization—the highly structured assemblage of men, and now some women, of which he is a part. It is to this, at the expense of family, friends, sex, recreation and sometimes health and effective control of alcoholic intake, that he is expected to devote his energies.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
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