Bureaucracy Quotes

• It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

  Thomas Sowell

  Thinking, Doctors, Government

  Thomas Sowell (2006). “Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays”, Hoover Inst Press

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• An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

  Eugene McCarthy

  Liberty, Threat, Inefficiency

  Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.109, Fulcrum Publishing

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• The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Civilization, Needs, Libertarian

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• You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.

  Thomas Sowell

  Libertarian, Outcomes, Procedures

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• The bureaucracy is a circle from which one cannot escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. The top entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst the lower levels credit the top with understanding of the general, and so all are mutually deceived.

  Karl Marx

  Circles, Understanding, Details

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• Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relations with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients.

  Alan Keyes

  People, Clients, Structure

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• Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Liberty, Libertarian, Modern

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

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• Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

  Franz Kafka

  Cynical, Revolution, Slime

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• No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Libertarian, Size

  Television broadcast, 27 Oct. 1964

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• No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Political, Voting

  Television broadcast, 27 Oct. 1964

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• Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.

  Dale Dauten

  Government, Giving, Stubborn

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• Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Spiritual, Enemy, Regard

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

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• Entrenched bureaucracies are always opposed to fundamental changes.

  Christopher Dodd

  Fundamentals

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• A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Country, War, Tyrants

  Aldous Huxley (1937). “Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideals and Into the Methods Employed for Their Realization”, p.71, Transaction Publishers

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• Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Government, Rebellious, Proposal

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.85, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.

  Hyman Rickover

  Inspirational, Funny, Twilight

  The New York Times, November 3, 1986.

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• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

  Leon Trotsky

  Harmony, Social, Social Harmony

  Leon Trotsky (2012). “The Revolution Betrayed”, p.40, Courier Corporation

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• The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.

  Alain de Botton

  Country, May, Developing Countries

  Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.40, Penguin UK

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• The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Responsibility, Men, Perfect

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

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• Other countries, such as Israel, successfully employ behavior detection techniques at their airports, but the bloated, ineffective bureaucracy of TSA has produced another security failure for U.S. transportation systems.

  John Mica

  Country, Airports, Israel

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• We will have bigger bureaucracies, bigger labor unions, and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality.

  Arthur C. Brooks

  Running, Equality, Entrepreneur

  Arthur C. Brooks (2011). “The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future”, p.63, Basic Books

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• If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create an agency the size of NASA to build one.

  Ross Perot

  Airplane, Today, Size

  "Ross Perot Speaks Out".

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• It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world's total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Civilization, Numbers, Nurse

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• The minute health care becomes a huge, unwieldy, expensive government bureaucracy it's a permanent feature of life and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

  Mark Steyn

  Government, Care, Minutes

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