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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.