Encyclopedia of Humor

Peter’s Principle: In every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence.

Pudder’s Law: Anything that begins well will end badly. (Note: The converse of Pudder’s law is not true.)

Putt’s Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.

Putts-Brooks Law: Adding manpower to a late technology project only makes it later.

Quigley’s Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will attempt to use it.

Ralph’s Observation: It is a mistake to let any mechanical object realise that you are in a hurry. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.

Reisner’s Rule of Conceptual Inertia: If you think big enough, you’ll never have to do it.

Oliver’s Law of Location: No matter where you go, there you are.

Orben’s Packaging Discovery: For the first time in history, one bag of groceries produces two bags of trash.

Osborn’s Law: Variables won’t, constants aren’t.

Ozman’s Laws: (1) If someone says he will do something “without fail,” he won’t. (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make. (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn’t. (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.

O’Reilly’s Law of the Kitchen: Cleanliness is next to impossible

O’Toole’s Commentary On Murphy’s Law: Murphy was an optimist.

Parkinson’s Laws: First Law – Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Second Law – Expenditures rise to meet income. Fourth Law – The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. Law of Committees – The amount of time spent by a committee on an agenda item is inversely proportional to the cost of the item. Fifth Law – If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. Sixth Law – Action expands to fill the void created by human failure.

Meade’s Maxim: Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else.

Mencken’s Law: There is always an easy answer to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.

Muir’s Law: When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Newlan’s Truism: An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.

Ninety-Ninety Rule Of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Nolan’s Placebo: An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

Nowlan’s Theory: He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from the next freeway exit.

Lieberman’s Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn’t matter, because nobody listens.

Logg’s Rebuttal to Gray’s Law: ‘n+1′ trivial tasks take twice as long as ‘n’ trivial tasks.

Lorenz’s Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

Lynch’s Law: When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.

Manly’s Maxim: Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Mason’s First Law of Synergism: The one day you’d sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

May’s Law: The quality of correlation is inversely proportional to the density of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.)

Johnson’s Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.

Kramer’s Law: You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.

Larkinson’s Law: All laws are basically false.

The Last One’s Law Of Program Generators: A program generator creates programs that are more “buggy” than the program generator.

Law Of The Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

The Law Of The Too Solid Goof: In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking contain the errors. Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either. Corollary 2: Any nagging intruder, who stops by with unsought advice, will spot it immediately.

Robert E. Lee’s Truce: Judgement comes from experience; experience comes from poor judgement.