69 quotes found
“The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.”
“An "attack on SeaWorld" might mean a bomb, or it might mean graffiti and glitter and a cream pie in the face. The government doesn't always seem to distinguish between the two.”
“for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.”
“A healthy agency does not require relevance to the national agenda so much as the APPEARANCE of relevance to the national agenda," Humphrey explained. "It is perhaps the second-most important tool ...”
“Widespread commercial distribution of ice was so new that 300 tons of the precious commodity melted at one port while customs officials tried to figure out how to classify it.”
“For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the distance, like the introduction to some epic science-fiction film, then shining bright...”
“Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have ...”
“Uniformity in the common law, consisting of broad principles like the "reasonable person" standard, generally permits adjustment for the circumstances. This type of uniform principle is almost syno...”
“Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, general...”
“The difference between the modern laws and those of the past is that wisdom is no longer a respected requirement and it has become secondary in importance to bureaucratic procedure.”
“They questioned us but they were polite because we had passports and money. I do not think they believed a word of the story and I thought it was silly but it was like a law-court. You did not want...”
“By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of ce...”
“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatusthe bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across ...”
“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.”
“The idealized market was supposed to deliver friction free exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies....”
“pessimists see people as liabilities to manage, as burdens or threats that we must minimize.”
“Revolutions as often take place because the old regime simply collapse out of economic inefficiency and bureaucratic rigidity rather than for the reasons given out by their successors taking too mu...”
“In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less ...”
“Unnatural death always provoked a peculiar unease, an uncomfortable realization that there were still some things that might not be susceptible to bureaucratic control.”
“Just three words? Nothing about his physical health? His equipment? His supplies?''You got me,' she said. 'He left a detailed status report. I just decided to lie for no reason.''Funny,' Venkat sai...”
