C. Northcote Parkinson Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Work, Law, Firsts

  29 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Communication, Poison, Void

  48 Copy quote

• Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Procrastination, Political, Denial

  The Law of Delay ch. 13 (1971)

  61 Copy quote

• Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Work, Law, Numbers

  29 Copy quote

• Administrators make work for each other so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Numbers, Prestige, Administrators

  31 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Opportunity, Men, Decision

  Parkinson's Law ch. 10 (1957)

  36 Copy quote

• No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Kings, Ignorance, Law

  36 Copy quote

• 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.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Mean, Law, Agendas

  Parkinson's Law ch. 3 (1957)

  34 Copy quote

• Expenditure rises to meet income.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Inspirational, Income, Expenditures

  The Law and the Profits ch. 1 (1960)

  32 Copy quote

• The vacuum created by a failure to communicate will quickly be filled with rumor, misrepresentations, drivel, and poison.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Rumor, Vacuums, Poison

  31 Copy quote

• If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Decision, Important, Delay

  18 Copy quote

• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase "It is the busiest man who has time to spare."

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Work, Men, Phrases

  22 Copy quote

• Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay. During a period of exciting discovery or progress, there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Time, Discovery, Perfect

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Men, Life Is, Initiative

  "In-laws and Outlaws". Book by C. Northcote Parkinson, 1962.

  22 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Imagination, Essentials, Firsts

  18 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Real, Organization, Body

  28 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Perfection, Institutions, Collapse

  Parkinson's Law ch. 6 (1957)

  28 Copy quote

• Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Mean, Focus, Expansion

  In-Laws and Outlaws (1962)

  21 Copy quote

• People of great ability do not emerge, as a rule, from the happiest background. So far as my own observation goes, I would conclude that ability, although hereditary, is improved by an early measure of adversity and improved again by a later measure of success.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Adversity, People, Observation

  18 Copy quote

• It is the busiest man who has time to spare.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Men, Spares

  8 Copy quote

• The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take. He becomes fussy about filing, keen on seeing that pencils are sharpened, eager to ensure that the windows are open (or shut) and apt to use two or three different-colored inks.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Opportunity, Men, Two

  Parkinson's Law ch. 10 (1957)

  9 Copy quote

• A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Flower, Roots, Plant

  10 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Government, People, Use

  12 Copy quote

• Expenditures rise to meet income.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Survival, Income, Expenditures

  The Law and the Profits ch. 1 (1960)

  20 Copy quote

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

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Blessing, Boredom, Progress

  20 Copy quote

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