Business one liners

Business one-liners 42
The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes a little longer.

The one item you want is never the one on sale.

The one thing that money can not buy is poverty.

The one who does the least work will get the most credit.

The one who says it can't be done should never interrupt the one doing it.

The one you want is never the one on sale.

The only important information in a hierarchy is who knows what.

The only knowledge that can hurt you is the knowledge you don't have.

The only real errors are human errors.

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory.
 
Business one-liners 43
The only sense that is common in the long run is the sense of change. We instinctively avoid it.

The only time to be positive is when you are positive you are wrong.

The organization of any program reflects the organization of the people who developed it.

The other line always moves faster.

The paperless office will become a reality about the same time as the paperless toilet.

The person not here is the one working on the problem.

The phone will not ring until you leave your desk and walk to the other end of the building.

The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
 
Business one-liners 44
The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is usually about 0.6.

The repairman will never have seen a model quite like yours before.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and littered with sloppy analysis.

The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

The simplest subjects are the ones you don't know anything about.

The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.

The solving of a problem lies in finding the solvers.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up!

The squeaky wheel doesn't always get the grease; sometimes it gets replaced.

The stomach expands to accommodate the amount of junk food available.
 
Business one-liners 45
The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even in the wrong denomination.

The sun goes down just when you need it the most.

The tasks and chores that get rewarded, get done first.

The telephone will ring when you are outside the door, fumbling for your keys.

The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users don't really know what they want, but they know for what they don't want.

The trouble with doing right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was!

The two greatest causes of system failures are sysadmins and users. If you can keep both of these groups away from your machines, the reliability increases dramatically.

The usefulness of any meeting is in inverse proportion to the attendance.

The trick is to stop thinking it is 'your' money. - IRS auditor

The trouble with life is that it's a do-it-yourself kit without instructions.

There is never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.
 
Business one-liners 46
The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.

The workbench is always untidier than last time.

The worse your line is tangled, the better is the fishing around you.

The yoo-hoo you you-hew into the forest is the yoo-hoo you get back.

There are no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison, remarking about his laboratory

There are no winners in life...only survivors.

There are only two forces that unite men, fear and self-interest...Napoleon

There are three ways to get things done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or forbid your kids to do it.

There are two kinds of people who don't say much: those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

There are two rules for success in life: Rule 1 - Don't tell people everything you know.

There is nothing so small that it can't be blown out of proportion.
 
Business one-liners 47
There are two things on earth that are universal: hydrogen and stupidity.

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.

There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.

There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

There is a right way, a wrong way, and my way to do everything.

There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

There is always one more bug.

There is always one more idiot than you counted on.

There is no evidence to support the notion that life is serious.

There is nothing so habit-forming as money.
 
Business one-liners 48
There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrnog.

There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrrong.

There is no limit to how bad things can get.

There is no limit to the amount of good that people can accomplish, if they don't care who gets the credit.

There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.

There is no problem so large that it cannot be solved by the application of a correctly chosen thermonuclear device.

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

There is no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist.

There is no such thing as instant experience.

There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.
 
Business one-liners 49
Acheson's Rule Of The Bureaucracy: A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. - Dean Acheson

Action's Law: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Adler's Distinction: Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and from the bureaucrats.

Advertising Rule: In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, that it is curable.

Air Force Inertia Axiom: Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness.

Allen's Distinction: The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. - Woody Allen

Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being.

Alden's Laws: (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. (2) Always be backlit. (3) Sit down whenever possible.

Andrea's Admonition: Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, it isn't and he can.

Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
 
Business one-liners 50
Approval Seeker's Law: Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least. - Washington writer Rozanne Weissman

The Aquinas Axiom: What the gods get away with, the cows don't.

Army Axiom: Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.

Astrology Laws: It's always the wrong time of the month. - Rozanne Weissman

Avery's Rule of Three: Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job - it's the start of a brand new series of three.

Baer's Quartet: What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is good politics. - Eugene Baer (Baer also allows that it can be restated somewhat more compactly as "What's good politics is bad economics and vice versa, vice versa.")

Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele.

Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors.
 
Business one-liners 51
Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it, get a larger hammer.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner or the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your toes.

Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company, Nowadays it insists on it. - Columnist Russell Baker

Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb: The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon by the bee.

Barker's Proof: Proofreading is more effective after publication.

Becker's Law: It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. - Jules Becker & Co. (Becker goes on to claim that his law permeates industry as well as government, "...once a person has been hired inertia sets in, and the employer would rather settle for the current employee's incompetence and idiosyncrasies than look for a new employee.")

Belle's Constant: The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is about 0.6. - from a 1977 JIR article of the same title by Daniel McIvor and Olsen Belle, in which it is observed that knowledge of this constant is most useful in planning long-range projects. It is based on such things as an analysis of an eight hour workday in which only 4.8 hours are actually spent working (or 0.6 of the time available), with the rest being spent on coffee breaks, bathroom visits, resting, walking, fiddling around, and trying to determine what to do next.

Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: (1) Houses are for people to live in. (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.

Berkeley's Laws: (1) The world is more complicated than most of our theories make it out to be. (2) Ignorance is no excuse. (3) Never decide to buy something while listening to the salesman. (4) Most problems have either many answers or no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer. (5) Most general statements are false, including this one. (6) An exception - test a rule; it never proves it. (7) The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it; it probably isn't right. (8) If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made. (9) Check the answer you have worked out once more - before you tell anybody. - Edmund C. Berkeley
 
Business one-liners 52
Berra's Law: You can observe a lot just by watching. - Yogi Berra

Bierman's Laws of Contracts: (1) In any given document, you can't cover all the "what if's". (2) Lawyers stay in business resolving all the unresolved "what if's". (3) Every resolved "what if" creates two unresolved "what if's".

Billing's Law: Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. - Josh Billings

Billings Phenomenon: The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious. - Robert E. Machol (The name refers to a well-known Billings story in which a farmer becomes concerned that his black horses are eating more than his white horses. He does a detailed study of the situation and finds that he has more black horses than white horses, Machol points out.)

Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation: The judge's jokes are always funny.

Blutarsky's Axiom: Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason.

Bolton's Law Of Ascending Budgets: Under current practices, both expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may be in excess. - Joe Bolton, Fellow of the RAND Graduate Institute

Bonafede's Revelation: The conventional wisdom is that power is an aphrodisiac. In truth, it's exhausting. - Dom Bonafede in a February, 1977 article in the Washington Post entitled "Surviving in Washington"

Boren's Laws Of The Bureaucracy: (1) When in doubt, mumble. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in charge, ponder. - James H. Boren, Founder, President and Chairperson of the Board of the International Association of Professional Bureaucrats [INATAPROBU]
 
Business one-liners 53
Boucher's Observation: He who blows his own horn always plays the music several octaves higher than originally written.

Bove's Theorem: The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.

Boyle's Laws: (1) The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even in the wrong denomination. (2) When things are going well, someone will inevitably experiment detrimentally. (3) The deficiency will never show itself during the dry runs. (4) Information travels more surely to those with a lessor need to know. (5) An original idea can never emerge from committee in the original. (6) When the product is destined to fail, the delivery system will perform perfectly. (7) The crucial memorandum will be snared in the out-basket by the paper clip of the overlying correspondence and go to file. (8) Success can be insured only by devising a defense against failure of the contingency plan. (9) Performance is directly affected by the perversity of inanimate objects. (10) If not controlled, work will to the competent man until he submerges. (11) The lagging activity in a project will invariably be found in the area where the highest overtime rates lie waiting. (12) Talent in staff work or sales will recurringly be interrupted as managerial ability. (13) The "think positive" leader tends to listen to his subordinates' premonitions only during the postmortems. (14) Clearly stated instructions will consistently produce multiple interpretations. (15) On successive charts of the same organization the number of boxes will never decrease. - Charles P. Boyle, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee; that will do them in.

Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"

Brien's First Law: At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.

Brilliant's Law Of Limited Ambition: If you can't learn how to do it well, learn how to enjoy doing it poorly.

Brilliant's Observation On Modern Art: Not all our artists are playing a joke on the public. Some are genuinely mad.
 
Business one-liners 54
Bureau Termination, Law of: When a government bureau is scheduled to be phased out, the number of employees in that bureau will double within 12 months after the decision is made.

Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

Calkin's Law of Menu Language: The number of adjectives and verbs that are added to the description of a menu item is in inverse proportion to the quality of the dish.

Canada Bill Jones's Motto: It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.

Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.

Carlson's Consolation: Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example.

Carson's Observation on Footwear: If the shoe fits, buy the other one, too.

Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.

Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
 
Business one-liners 55
Exceptions prove the rule, and wreck the budget.

Excuses are like bodies; everybody has one!

Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.

Experience is something you do not get until just after you need it.

Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.

Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.

Experiment and theory often show remarkable agreement when performed in the same laboratory.

Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.

Extremes meet.

Fact without theory is trivia; theory without fact is garbage.
 
Business one-liners 56
Familiarity breeds attempt.

Familiarity breeds children.

Far-away talent always seems better than home-developed talent.

Fill what is empty; empty what is full; scratch where it itches.

For every "10" there are 10 "1's".

For every action, there is a corresponding over-reaction.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.

For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill.

For every idiot proof system devised, a new, improved idiot will arise to overcome it.
 
Business one-liners 57
For every problem, there is a neat, plain solution...and it is always wrong.

For every vision, there is an equal and opposite revision.

Four-wheel-drive just means getting stuck in more inaccessible places.

Free advice costs nothing until you act upon it.

Free time which unexpectedly becomes available will be wasted.

Freud's 23rd law: ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their soundness and validity.

Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Frustration is not having anyone to blame but yourself.

Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.

Geologists do not dress for success unless they are trying to convince others that they are going on interviews.
 
Business one-liners 58
Given a bad start, trouble will increase at an exponential rate.

Glory may be fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Go where the money is.

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

Good listeners are not only popular everywhere, but after awhile they know something.

Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

Great minds run in great circles.

Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at.

Happiness is merely the remission of pain.
 
Business one-liners 59
Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?

Has anyone ever heard of a self-made failure?

Have you flogged your crew today?

He who beats his sword into a plowshare usually ends up plowing for those who kept their swords.

He who dies with the most toys is still dead.

He who dies with the most toys, wins.

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

He who hesitates is probably right.

He who pulls the oars does not have time to rock the boat.
 
Business one-liners 60
He who shouts the loudest has the floor.

He who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

Hindsight is an exact science.

History is the science of what never happens twice.

History repeats itself. That is one of the things wrong with history.

I disapprove of every conspiracy of which I am not a part.

I have never found, in long experience, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

I have run out of sick leave, so I'm calling in dead.

I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
 
Business one-liners 61
I knocked several times, but you weren't in. - Opportunity

I once worked as a salesman and was very independent; I took orders from no one.

I think we should really add to the confusion... Let's call in (Insert Your Favorite Group - Engineering/Financial...)

I think...therefore I am confused.

I will get it done when I get it done!

I would give $1000 to be a millionaire.

I've got to stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I'm a drifter. - Lee Iacocca

If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

If a man advances confidently in the direction of his dreams to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. - Henry David Thoreau

If a program is useful it will be changed, if it is useless, it will be documented.
 
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