Laurence J. Peter

Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1919-09-16 – 1990-01-12) was an educator and management theorist best known for having formulated the Peter Principle.

Quotes

The Peter Principle (1977, together with Raymond Hull)

• In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
  • p. 25
  • Statement of the Peter Principle

• Incompetence plus incempetence equals incompetence
  • p. 107 (The Mathematics of Incompetence)

Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)

ISBN 0-688-03217-6

• The only valid rule about the proper length of a statement is that it achieve its purpose effectively.
  • Introduction, p. 10

• Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
  • p. 83

• If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
  • p. 125

• The habitually punctual make all their mistakes right on time.
  • p. 181

• Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.
  • p. 324

• When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
  • p. 418