#Inefficiency Quotes

“Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time.”

“If you wanted nothing done at all, Balfour was the man for the job.”

“I read where they are going to limit debate in the Senate. It used to be that a man could talk all day, but now, as soon as he tells all he knows, he has to sit down. Most of these birds will just be getting up and nodding now. Why, some of them won't be able to answer roll call.”

“You could transfer Congress over to run Standard Oil or General Motors, and they would have both things bankrupt in two years.”

“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”

“This stuff they are talking here in Congress costs the people of the United States $44 a page. That's beside what it costs to ship it to the asylums where it's read.”

“Farmers have more Associations, and Bureaus, and Clubs, than they have pitchforks.”

“You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.”

“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.”

“Anarchy [is] necessarily consequent to inefficiency.”

“The inefficiency of political control of an economy has been demonstrated more often, in more places, and under more varied conditions, than almost anything outside the realm of pure science.”

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

“It would be useless to bomb Washington. If you destroy one building, they already have two other buildings completely staffed with people doing exactly the same thing.”

“If a government commission had worked on the horse, you would have the first horse that could operate its knee joint in both directions. The trouble is it couldn't have stood up.”

“A wanton waste of projectiles.”

“In America they got two policemen, five policemen and one car watching each other, each has got a pistol, one has got a machine gun, one' got a shotgun and two dogs growling at each other.”

“Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”

“Many hammer all over the wall and believe that with each blow they hit the nail on the head.”

“Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.”

“Equity sends questions to Law. Law sends questions back to equity; Law finds it can't do this, equity finds it can't do that; neither can do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing & that counsel appearing for B.”

“Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.”