Bureaucracy Quotes - Page 16

• As ever with modern Britain, we are let down by a vast, over-manned, over-funded, hidebound, obstructive, box-ticking and incompetent bureaucracy.

  Frederick Forsyth

  Let Down, Modern, Boxes

  7 Copy quote

• At the very end, the one person who Rambo should kill, he doesn't kill. He lets it live. Because you can't kill that kind of hypocritical bureaucracy. It goes on forever.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Forever, Rambo, Goes On

  "New again: Sylvester Stallone". Interview with Pat Hackett, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 2, 2015.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We believe in a free Europe, not a standardised Europe. Diminish that variety within the member states, and you impoverish the whole Community. We insist that the institutions of the European Community are managed so that they increase the liberty of the individual throughout the continent. These institutions must not be permitted to dwindle into bureaucracy. Whenever they fail to enlarge freedom the institutions should be criticised and the balance restored.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Believe, Europe, Community

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• America isn't Wollman Rink, but I think almost everybody watching, and certainly the people who voted for him, have had frustrating experiences with bureaucrats and bureaucracy, private as well as public, pushing them around.

  Paul Solman

  Thinking, People, Frustrating

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know that the two most important things in a child's education are a good teacher and an involved parent. You don't foster those things with a bloated federal bureaucracy - you encourage them when you support choice and accountability.

  Carly Fiorina

  Teacher, Children, Two

  "Carly Fiorina Answers 12 Christian Post Questions for Every Presidential Candidate". Interview with Napp Nazworth, www.christianpost.com. January 4, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The CIA is an incompetent bureaucracy, generally.

  Robert Baer

  Cia, Incompetent

  "Torture, Drones, and Hollywood: A Former CIA Operative Talks". Interview with Ed Rampell, progressive.org. December 23, 2014.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Chipko activists have always been close to my parents, since my father was among the few forestry officials who supported them within the bureaucracy. And I was involved with the Chipko movement in my student days.

  Vandana Shiva

  Father, Parent, Movement

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. September 29, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• One book that I heard was circulating the Green Zone was "Bureaucracy Does Its Thing" by Robert Komer , who worked for President [Lindon] Johnson in Saigon. This book is about the inevitably of screwing up when a country takes on a war with so little understanding of the country they are fighting.

  George Packer

  Country, War, Book

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By going from the bottom-up again, we see where successes work, and you can also see where the status quo can be the biggest obstacle or roadblock to success. The kind of entrepreneurs in whom we need to invest are the kind who are willing to fight that status quo, bureaucracy, complacency, and corruption.

  Jacqueline Novogratz

  Fighting, Entrepreneur, Needs

  "The Marriage of Love & Power: Conversation w/ Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund". Interview with Gina Murdock, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. December 1, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bureaucracies that are in place now, they're not going to change, they're not going to stop.

  Ian Somerhalder

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We've seen a shift where people were often initially reluctant to call things terrorism until they knew for sure. And now they start out assuming it's terrorism and then work backwards and say it may or may not have been terrorism. And it does matter tremendously because of the resources involved. If it's a crime that's seen as a disturbed individual, then local police will handle it. If it's a crime that's seen as someone who might be linked to an international terrorist group, you get the vast federal U.S. national security bureaucracy as well as tremendous political attention.

  Daniel Byman

  People, Political, Police

  "When To Call Attacks 'Terrorism'". "All Things Considered" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. September 18, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You see the kind of approach, because he [Doanld Trump] is a businessman. He's like, I'm going to pick up the phone, I'm gonna call that CEO and we're going to talk about this directly, instead of getting mired in a lot of the way down, you know, bureaucracy and red tape and having 25 assistants or deputies talk to somebody instead of going directly to the root of the problem.

  Kimberly Guilfoyle

  Phones, Roots, Tape

  Source: www.foxnews.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Green Party provides the infrastructure, kind of the culture of watchdogging the electoral bureaucracy, and how you participate, how you get on the ballot, stuff like that which is very difficult to do unless you have billions of dollars.

  Jill Stein

  Party, Stuff, Dollars

  Source: www.cpa-connecticut.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is common to our societies is the development into a managed mass society, with big bureaucracy, managing people. The Russians do it by force. We do it by persuasion.

  Erich Fromm

  People, Development, Our Society

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you have got high-ranking officials reaching down five levels in the bureaucracy to drag an analyst up to their office to berate them and threaten their jobs because they don't like the conclusions about an intelligence matter, that, in my view, is dangerous.

  Christopher Dodd

  Jobs, Views, Office

  4 Copy quote

• The great successes of the modern environmental movement in the '60s and '70s had laid the seeds of their failure in the early years of the 21st Century. They had built institutions filled with lawyers and scientists well suited to lobby policy makers who basically shared their world view. This worked well when liberals controlled the Congress and much of the federal bureaucracy, and when the politics of the time were more supportive of active government efforts to regulate the economy and clean up the environment.

  Ted Nordhaus

  Government, Views, Years

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic-love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while despising the domestic bureaucracy. Men just wanted to focus on one big thing, leaving the thousands of smaller messes for the women around them to clean up.

  Bonnie Jo Campbell

  War, Character, Fighting

  4 Copy quote

• We have got to accept Big Government for the duration-for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. … And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington-even with Truman at the reins of it all.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  War, Army, Government

  10 Copy quote

• They're on you day and night. Their oversight is just too extreme [. . .] That's why our 10-year loan, we paid it back in three years. We couldn't stand the government. The bureaucracy kills you.

  Lee Iacocca

  Night, Government, Years

  4 Copy quote

• The church is a major bureaucracy, and major bureaucracies are disobedient to the gospel.

  Philip Berrigan

  Church, Majors

  Philip Berrigan, Fred Wilcox (1996). “Fighting the lamb's war: skirmishes with the American Empire : the autobiography of Philip Berrigan”, Common Courage Pr

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bureaucracies tend to grow and to brag about their growth based on how many individuals they have and how much money they spend.

  Darrell Issa

  Growth, Individual, Brag

  Interview with John King, www.realclearpolitics.com. April 16, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work.

  Daniel Tammet

  Office, Feelings, Style

  "A genius explains". Interview with Richard Johnson, www.theguardian.com. February 11, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There have been brilliant satires about the tax bureaucracy before, from the Beatles song ‘The Taxman’ to the film ‘Harry’s War,’ but in some ways Jim Greenfield’s The Taxman Cometh outdoes them all. His tale of a little guy who can’t take it anymore is both compelling and timely, given the tax scandals we read about in Washington almost every day.

  John Fund

  Song, War, Guy

  4 Copy quote

• The Sangh Parivar, against which I had been waging a war, misled the people. My opponents used the Election Commission and the bureaucracy to win a political battle.

  Lalu Prasad Yadav

  War, Winning, People

  6 Copy quote

• When the fountains of government [borrowing] abundance began to dry up, when through lack of funds and the impossibility of negotiating fresh loans the state was forced to check the extension of bureaucracy and to put a stop to public works, then and then only did the Italians realize what it meant to have allowed themselves to be made one of the most heavily taxed nations in the world.

  John T. Flynn

  Government, Dry Up, World

  John Thomas Flynn (1944). “As We Go Marching”, p.16, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  6 Copy quote

  Show source