C. Northcote Parkinson Quotations

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.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The smaller the function, the greater the management.

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

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

The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

In the foundation and development of a successful enterprise there must be a single-minded pursuit of financial profit.

The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor.

A committee grows organically, flourishes and blossoms, sunlit on top and shady beneath, until it dies, scattering the seeds from which other committees will spring.

Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.

Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.

Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull.

The onset of one religion can be resisted only by another.

Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members.

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

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.

It is the busiest man who has time to spare.

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

Expenditures rise to meet income.

The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.

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

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

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

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

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."

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.

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

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

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

Expenditure rises to meet income.

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...

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.