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No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date.

C. Northcote Parkinson

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C. Northcote Parkinson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1909
Born: July 30
Died: 1993
Died: March 9
Historian
Naval Historian
Novelist
Writer
Barnard Castle
County Durham
Cyril Northcote Parkinson
Ignorance
Atoms
Instructed
Told
Gravity
Treasury
Law
Date
Atom
Certain
Ministers
Newton
Officials
Split
Discover
Official
Fleming
King
Splits
Rutherford
Kings
Minister
Penicillin

More quotes by C. Northcote Parkinson

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People of great ability do not emerge, as a rule, from the happiest background. So far as my own observation goes, I would conclude that ability, although hereditary, is improved by an early measure of adversity and improved again by a later measure of success.
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Expenditure rises to meet income.
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The basic quality for the diplomat is not intelligence but loyalty.
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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.
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It is the busiest man who has time to spare.
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When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
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Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase It is the busiest man who has time to spare.
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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.
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The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
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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.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take. He becomes fussy about filing, keen on seeing that pencils are sharpened, eager to ensure that the windows are open (or shut) and apt to use two or three different-colored inks.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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Expenditures rise to meet income.
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The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.
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The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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The vacuum created by a failure to communicate will quickly be filled with rumor, misrepresentations, drivel, and poison.
C. Northcote Parkinson
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The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
C. Northcote Parkinson