“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism run by pygmies.” – Honore de Balzac

This may seem harsh, and is.
Bureaucrats, be not dismayed.

De Balzac had gnarly words for others also.

Marriage: No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.

Capitalists: Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

Utopians: Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

Miss Manners: Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Men: A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.

Women: When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

Husbands: The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.

Wives: A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.

Brokers: I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.

Marriage: Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.

Young women: At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.

Old women: Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.

Money: Finance, like time, devours its own children.

Youth: For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.

With different timing, de Balzac could have become the Internet’s first flamer or troll.

–          Jerry Guzi

Credit for quotes: Brainyquote.com
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/honore_de_balzac.html

Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright.Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_de_Balzac

Photo credit: Wikipedia, Honoré de Balzac on an 1842 daguerreotype by Louis-Auguste Bisson