The first responsibility of any bureaucracy is the preservation of itself. The second is to expand its responsibilities.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

The perfect bureaucracy is one where responsibility can always be shifted to someone else.

Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress.

In a bureaucracy, things go slower and slower until they stop altogether.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.

A bureaucracy is sure to think that its own duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members.

The larger the organization, the more layers between the decision-maker and the implementer, and the more diluted the original intent becomes.

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

In any bureaucracy, paperwork increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the things you're not doing.

The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

Bureaucracy is the rule of no one, and it has become the modern form of despotism.

The seven deadly sins of bureaucracy: red tape, tunnel vision, turf wars, indecision, myopia, complacency, and risk aversion.

Bureaucracy is the technology of power stripped of human emotion and accountability.

In a mature bureaucracy, the system becomes more important than the purpose for which it was created.

The bureaucratic mind is concerned with process, not outcomes; with procedure, not purpose.

The first sign of bureaucratic decay is when the forms become more important than the content they're supposed to capture.

Bureaucracy is the means by which the organization learns to survive without actually accomplishing anything.

In bureaucracy, the urgent always drives out the important.

The bureaucracy's solution to any problem is to add another layer of oversight.

Bureaucracy is the organizational manifestation of the fear of making a mistake.

The ultimate triumph of bureaucracy is when the process becomes so complex that nobody can be held accountable for anything.

Bureaucracy is what happens when the desire for control overwhelms the desire for results.

In a perfect bureaucracy, the right hand not only doesn't know what the left hand is doing - it has forms to fill out before it can ask.

Bureaucracy is the organizational equivalent of entropy - everything tends toward maximum paperwork and minimum action.

The bureaucracy's motto: When in doubt, form a committee. When still in doubt, require a report.