quotations about bureaucracy
Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats.
PHILIP K. HOWARD
Death of Common Sense
Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.
DALE DAUTEN
attributed, The Greatest Quotations of All-Time
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
LAURENCE J. PETER
Peter Prescription
The heavy curtain of Bureaucracy was drawn between the right thing to be done and the right man to do it.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Les Employés
Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose public records to be true.
WILLIAM BLAKE
annotation to Bishop Watson's An Apology for the Bible in a Series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Paine
A bureaucracy is a specific structure of statuses and roles in which the power to influence the actions of others increases as one nears the top of the organization.
WILLIAM KORNBLUM
Sociology in a Changing World