C. Northcote Parkinson Quotations

The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

In the foundation and development of a successful enterprise there must be a single-minded pursuit of financial profit.

The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor.

A committee grows organically, flourishes and blossoms, sunlit on top and shady beneath, until it dies, scattering the seeds from which other committees will spring.

Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.

Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.

Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull.

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

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.

Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members.