Scott Adams
121 quotes
Biography
"It doesn't take many people to have a bad sense of humor to get in trouble at a corporation."
"I love you like a fat kid loves cake!"
"The best you can hope for in a relationship is to findsomeone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It isfutile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someonewho is capable of significant change; that sort of personexists only in our imaginations."
"You're thinking I'm one of those wise-ass California vegetarians who is going to tell you that eating a few strips of bacon is bad for your health. I'm not. I say its a free country and you should be able to kill yourself at any rate you choose, as long as your cold dead body is not blocking my driveway."
"Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. -- Dogbert's Motto"
"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant."
"If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?"
"The first time you see something that you have never seen before, you almost always know right away if you should eat it or run away from it."
"Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt."
"Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately."
"These days it seems like any idiot with a laptop computer can churn out a business book and make a few bucks. That's certainly what I'm hoping. It would be a real letdown if the trend changed before this masterpiece goes to print."
"Ninety percent of all new business ventures fail. Apparently, ten percent of the time you get lucky, and that's enough to support a modern economy. I'm betting that's what separates us from the animals; animals are lucky only nine percent of the time. I suspect this is true because I play strip poker with my cats and they rarely win. In fact, it's gotten to the point where they run like cowards at the sound of my electric shaver."
"It's useless to expect rational behavior from the people you work with, or anybody else for that matter. If you can come to peace with the fact that you're surrounded by idiots, you'll realize that resistance is futile, your tension will dissipate, and you can sit back and have a good laugh at the expense of others."
"You're only as important as your furniture. And that's at peak levels of dignity. [...] If you think about it, you can get fired but your furniture stays behind, gainfully employed at the company that didn't need you anymore."
"A Mission Statement is defined as "a long awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly." All good companies have one. Companies that don't have Mission Statements will often be under the mistaken impression that the objective of the company is to bicker among departments, produce low-quality products, and slowly go out of business."
"Contrary to popular belief, it's often your clothing that gets promoted. [...] Always dress better than your peers so your clothes will be the ones selected for promotion. And make sure you're in your clothes when it happens. One man made the mistake of bringing his dry cleaning to work and ended up as a direct report to his own sports jacket."
"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."
"The office is designed for "work," not productivity. Work can be defined as "anything you'd rather not be doing." Productivity is a different matter. Telecommuting substitutes two hours of productivity for ten hours of work."
"If not for the compulsion of engineers, mankind would have never seen the wheel, settling instead for the trapezoid because some Neanderthal in Marketing convinced everybody it had great braking power. And there would be no fire, because some middle-manager cave person would point out that if fire was such a good idea the other cave people would already be using it."
"The goal of change management is to dupe slow-witted employees into thinking change is good for them by appealing to their sense of adventure and love of challenge. This is like convincing a trout to leap out of a stream to experience the adventure of getting deboned."
"The most important skill for any leader is the ability to take credit for things that happen on their own."
"I have a saying: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.""
"As a manager you could do a lot of thinking, experimenting, and continuous training. Or you can just do what everyone else does and blindly follow my directions like an unthinking zombie. Blind obedience is easier than the alternatives and the pay's the same. In fact, the pay is better, if you look at it from an hourly perspective."
"Always "lead by example." Let's say you're trying to reduce costs in the company. You can set an example by ordering your chauffeur to get his hair cut at Super Cuts. This is the kind of personal sacrifice that inspires the employees. Soon you'll be able to squeeze their health benefits like a tourniquet on a seedless grape."
"When we are born, all humans are clueless, self-absorbed, and helpless. Most babies will grow out of it. Those who don't become managers."