Frank Herbert Quotes

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

Bureaucracy kills people's ability to try new ideas.

Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

And I think it's true of any big organization... Bureaucracies and organizations make it hard to do the right thing sometimes.

The Pentagon isn't a place that champions individuality and innovation.

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Should bureaucratic ways prevail and paper reign supreme? Should red tape and the Status Quo become our nation’s dream?

I confess to a prejudice against officialism and a dread of bureaucracy.

It is a huge bureaucracy. It is so inept. But it does function.

… people who have built a business doing it the old way think it would be better if things could be more stable for longer periods of time. But you have to remember, new inventions are not inherently disruptive. Invention is only disruptive if customers say, “Hey, I like this better than the old way”.

When you get big, there's a tendency to get caught up in process and bureaucracy.

I think when somebody wants to work diligently, when somebody wants to take away the cobwebs and see where attention is needed, to fix things, there is obviously going to be a backlash from those who have, for years, gained from status quo.

We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one; it is established, and it is understood.

Nobody can be at the same time a correct bureaucrat and an innovator

Face the facts, all these environmental organizations are thirty, forty, fifty years old. They have big buildings, big obligations, big staffs. They may trade on their youthful dreams, but the truth is, they're now part of the establishment. And the establishment works to preserve the status quo. It just does.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.

This is why I hate governments. It is always the rule, the fine print, carried out by the fine print men. There's nothing to fight, no wall to hammer with frustrated fists.

The major functions of the government are … operated by deeply embedded, hopelessly entangled bureaus where nothing is accomplished because the function of the bureau is to intercept every living idea and smother it.

In a corporate state, all attempts to reduce bureaucracy increase it.

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.

There are more agriculture bureaucrats than there are farmers in this country.

The most important rule of bureaucracy is never be wrong and alone.