Bureaucracy Quotes and Sayings

“Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy, but an inevitable complement to it.” – Joseph Schumpeter

“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.” – Richard Nixon

“The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.” – Brooks Atkinson

“Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.” – Javier Salcedo

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!” – Ronald Reagan

“It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world’s total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.” – Barbara Ehrenreich

“A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.” – Walter Bagehot

“Bureaucracy is more people doing less things, and taking more time to do them worse.” – Evan Esar

“Paperwork is the embalming fluid of bureaucracy, maintaining an appearance of life where none exists.” – Pobert Meltzer

“A bureaucrat is an official who is clothed with power and whom it doesn’t fit.” – Evan Esar

“Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relation with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients.” – Alan Keyes

“Recognition of the inevitability of comprehensive bureaucratization does not solve the problems that arise out of it.” – Joseph Schumpeter