Quotes about bureaucracy

"I always get back to the question, is it really necessary that men should consume so much of their bodily and mental energies in the machinery of civilized life? The world seems to me to do much of its toil for that which is not in any sense bread. Again, does not the latent feeling that much of their striving is to no purpose tend to infuse large quantities of sham into men's work?"

Allingham, William on bureaucracy   

"A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business."

Bagehot, Walter on bureaucracy   

"A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office a Republican wants."

Barkley, Alben W. on bureaucracy   

"In the US we find the label requirements are crazy. It is almost as if we had to label a bookcase with the warning 'do not eat this bookcase -- it can be harmful to your health'."

Bayley, Bjorn on bureaucracy   

"Poor fellow, he suffers from files."

Bevan, Aneurin on bureaucracy   

"Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true."

Blake, William on bureaucracy   

"Those who can, do, those who can't teach; and those who can do neither, administer."

Calverley, Calvin on bureaucracy   

"A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state."

Custine, Marquis De on bureaucracy   

"If the copying machines that came along later had been here during the war, I'm not sure the allies would have won. We'd all have drowned in paper."

Dickey, Alan on bureaucracy   

"It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world's total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses."

Ehrenreich, Barbara on bureaucracy   

"The inventor of the Xerox machine will, I am sure, find a special place reserved for him on one of the inner circles of Dante's Inferno."

Goodison, Nicholas on bureaucracy   

"Endless meetings, sloppy communications and red tape steal the entrepreneur's time."

Hayes, James L. on bureaucracy   

"Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held."

Huxley, Aldous on bureaucracy   

"A bureaucrat is a person who cuts red tape sideways."

Mccabe, J. on bureaucracy   

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."

Mccarthy, Eugene J. on bureaucracy
4 fans of this quote   

"Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism."

Mccarthy, Mary on bureaucracy   

"The longer the title, the less important the job."

Mcgovern, George on bureaucracy   

"The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine."

Mill, John Stuart on bureaucracy   

"So many signatures for such a small heart."

Mother Teresa on bureaucracy   

"Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us."

O'Rourke, P. J. on bureaucracy   

"If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of N.A.S.A. to make one."

Perot, H. Ross on bureaucracy   

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"

Reagan, Ronald on bureaucracy
5 fans of this quote   

"If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won t."

Rickover, Hyman G. on bureaucracy
3 fans of this quote   

"Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it."

Schumpeter, Joseph A. on bureaucracy   

"The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it."

Sitting Bull on bureaucracy   

"Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses."

Unknown, Source on bureaucracy   

"There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem."

Vidal, Gore on bureaucracy