Bosses Quotes

“Always be smarter than the people who hire you.”
― Lena Horne

“But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.

The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out.

That was the military.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow

“I now have anti-bodies to assholes after working for so many.”
― Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading

“If you want to know what’s your boss is really like, go to his office with a resignation letter. You will then see your boss’s true colours. You will then see his emotions without any filters. No boss can ever fake himself in front of an employee who has just resigned.”
― Abhaidev, The World's Most Frustrated Man

“Good cops make their bosses look good, and Hector was a one-man beauty school.”
― Edward Conlon, Blue Blood by Conlon, Edward (2004) Paperback

“Work harder; not smarter”
― Joseph Perry Grassi, The Little Guy (or The Motor Scooter): The story of a diminutive soldier in the rear with the gear

“The boss's got all he needs, certainly,
Eats swell,
Owns a lotta houses,
Goes vacationin',
Breaks strikes,
Runs politics, bribes police,
Pays off congress,
And struts all over the earth--

But me, I ain't never had enough to eat.
Me, I ain't never been warm in winter.
Me, I ain't never known security--
All my life, been livin' hand to mouth,
Hand to mouth.”
― Langston Hughes, Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings

“Whenever an apprentice’s rising skills and talent exceeds the master’s aptitude and expertise, the understudy must move on because frequently it is too bruising for the eclipsed master’s ego to abide.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“In business, scolding is not an insult, but a way of getting things done in an accurate and professional way.”
― Utibe Samuel Mbom, The Event Usher’s Handbook

“If you want to work with genius, you usually aren’t signing up for easy.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

“The best bosses break down problems into bite-sized pieces and talk and act like each little task is something that people can complete without great difficulty.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...And Learn from the Worst

“The truth is that bosses...don't matter as much as most of us believe. They typically account for less than 15 percent of the gap between good and bad organizational performance, although they often get over 50 percent of the blame and credit.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...And Learn from the Worst

“A boss over steps the boundaries of good taste and the implied condition of good faith in an employment agreement whenever they demand that their subordinates assist them resolve their personal as opposed to professional problems.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“It is a regrettable fact that whenever a person works for hire the employer begins to see all the hired hand’s efforts as an extension of themselves. Whether rightly justified or not, owners, managers, and bosses only perceive their subservient employees as a separate identity whenever they make a mistake. When all is well and successes roll in, it is a natural as rain for superiors to accept the credit for their underlining’s efforts. Over an extended period, even the most sensitive of overseers can take a dutiful servant for granted. Likewise, a loyal servant can slowly subsume their psychological individuality by constantly addressing their master’s wants and needs.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Everyone has a boss, and a business owner's boss is the customer.”
― Sabrina Newby

“My boss is white," said Simple.

"Most bosses are," I said.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Micro-managing bosses have micro-mini-mindset.”
― Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma, You By You

“What yo' all reckon is the matter sho' 'nough?"

"Must be something terrible when white folks get slow about putting us to work.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men

“The only difference between a boss and a leader is the differentiation of their actions.”
― Rob Liano

“The higher-ups read into things. And they ignore sentences they don’t like.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“you have to hate anyone who can dismiss you, even if they're good to you, because you work for them and not with them.”
― Irmgard Keun, The Artificial Silk Girl

“At its core, capitalism was defined by Marx as a social relation of production. He meant that profits are not the result of good accounting or the inventive ideas of the superrich, but are instead the outcome of an exploitative relationship between two classes of people: bosses and workers.”
― Hadas Thier, A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics

“The man who builds a factory builds a temple, . . . the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Have Faith In Massachusetts

“Nobody gave me a copy of your file."
"Of course not. I am your superior."
"Well, that's debatable.”
― J.L. Bryan, Lullaby

“Leaders solve problems while bosses create them”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“For some employers, there is no more glorious work than work done for free.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“Bosses are common. Leaders are like true love.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“Administrators are oblivious and generally get in the way; effective employees learn to work around them. That's how it always is.”
― Josiah Bancroft, The Hexologists

“Sitting on nails and pulling like mad. And what do we get for it? Nothing! Thrashings and misery, hard words and hard knocks. We’re workers, they say. Work, they call it! That’s the crummiest part of the whole business. We’re down in the hold, heaving and panting, stinking and sweating our balls off, and meanwhile! Up on deck in the fresh air, what do you see?! Our masters having a fine time with beautiful pink and perfumed women on their laps. They send for us, we’re brought up on deck. They put on their top hats and give us a big spiel like as follows: “You no-good swine! We’re at war! Those stinkers in Country No. 2! We’re going to board them and cut their livers out! Let’s go! Let’s go! We’ve got everything we need on board! All together now! Let’s hear you shout so the deck trembles: ‘Long live Country No. 1!’ So you’ll be heard for miles around. The man that shouts the loudest will get a medal and a lollipop! Let’s go! And if there’s anybody that doesn’t want to be killed on the sea, he can go and get killed on land, it’s even quicker!”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

“And then there are one's friends, good fellows, good fellows, great to be with them and talk, to have lunch together, dinner together, but all of it, I don't know, so sordid and pathetic and trivial, because even on the street we remain in the fabric warehouse, even overseas we're still seated before the Cashbook, and even in infinity we still have our boss.

Everyone has an office manager with a joke that's out of place, and everyone has a soul that falls outside the normal universe.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet