222 Quotes by Laurence J. Peter

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

The computer may be incompetent in itself--that is, unable to do the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying.

Before publishers' blurbs were invented, authors had to make their reputations by writing.