C. Northcote Parkinson
C. Northcote Parkinson
Cyril Northcote Parkinsonwas a British naval historian and author of some 60 books, the most famous of which was his best-seller Parkinson's Law, which led him to be also considered as an important scholar in public administration and management...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth30 June 1909
weed law discovery
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.
work law numbers
Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.
work law firsts
Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available.
mean law agendas
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.
kings ignorance law
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...
nice standards available
The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
education book mind
The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor.
spring shady grows
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.
mean focus decay
Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.
life emotional dull
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.
eight body members
Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members.
men funny-marriage married
It is now well known, however, that men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.
imagination firsts essentials
Imagination is essential and it comes first, for without imagination we are aimless.
government people use
Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich.