# Laurence J. Peter

Laurence Johnston Peter (16 September 1919 – [12 [January]] 1990) was a Canadian educator and management theorist, most famous for having formulated the Peter Principle.

## Quotes

* In every organization there is a considerable accumulation of dead wood in the executive level.
** Laurence J. Peter (1969) in "Up against the Peter principle". LIFE - Vol. 67, nr. 3. July 18, 1969. p. 59

### The Peter Principle (1969)

    The Peter Principle (1969) co-written with Raymond Hull
* Occupational incompetence is everywhere. Have you noticed it? Probably we all have noticed it.
** p. 20 cited in: James Ike Schaap (2011) "The Peter Principle: Is This Forty-Year-Old Universal Phenomenon in Decline or Growing?"
* In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
** p. 25: Statement of the Peter Principle
* In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties. Do not be fooled by apparent exceptions.
** p. 36 cited in: James Ike Schaap (2011)
* Some Blockett-type employees actually believe that they have received a genuine promotion; others recognize the truth. But the main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.
** p. 38: This phenomenon is called by Peter "percussive sublimation", or "being kicked upstairs".
* Never stand when you can sit; never walk when you can ride; never Push when you can Pull.
** p. 63
* Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence
** p. 107 (The Mathematics of Incompetence)

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

    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.
** p. 10: Introduction
* On second thought, maybe the atheist cannot find God, for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.
** p. 44: Sometimes misattributed to Francis Thompson, whose quote "An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident" Peter was commenting on.
* 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
* If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
** p. 333
*** Frequently mistaken as quote by Albert Einstein.
* Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
** p. 362
* When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
** p. 418

### Peter's Almanac (1982)

    Peter's Almanac (1977) ISBN 9780688016128
* Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
** Entry for September 24; as quoted in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Suzy Platt, Library of Congress, ISBN 0880297689, p. 78

### Quotes about Laurence J. Peter

* Dr. Peter effectively destroys examples of seeming exceptions and is rather convincing that his principle is ubiquitous.
** Lawrence Lipsitz, in The Process of Innovation in Education (1973), p. 26

## External links

* "Laurence J. Peter Is Dead at 70; His 'Principle' Satirized Business" by James Barron, in The New York Times (15 January 1990)