“A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain”
American science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote in Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973):
“A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.”
The one-liner about committees has been frequently cited. “Committee: the only life form with 12 stomachs and no brain” was cited in 1988.
Wikipedia: Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (/ˈhaɪnlaɪn/; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science-fiction writer. Often called the “dean of science fiction writers”, he was an influential and controversial author of the genre in his time.
Heinlein became one of the first science-fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science-fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered to be the “Big Three” of science fiction authors.
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Time Enough for Love:
The Lives of Lazarus Long
By Robert A. Heinlein
New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Son
1973
Pg. ?
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
26 May 1988, Jewish Advocate (Boston, MA), “Silver Linings” by Herb Abramson, pg. 9, col. 8:
Committee: the only life form with 12 stomachs and no brain.
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GCC 2.2 and the 3B2
Robert B. Hood
6/16/92
(...)
A committee is the only life form with twelve stomachs and no brain.
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Harry? Jeff? Re: FAIR WARNING TO ALL
Harry Krause
11/25/98
(...)
Committee: A life-form with twelve mouths and no brain.
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Handbook of Evidence-Based Critical Care
By Paul Ellis Marik
New York, NY: Springer-Verlag
2001
Pg. 506:
A committee is the only life form that has twelve rectums and no brain.
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Murphy’s Law
By Arthur Bloch
New York, NY: A Perigee Book
2003
Pg. 55:
Kirby’s Comment on Committees
A committee is the only life-form with twelve stomachs and no brain.
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Dictionary of Proverbs
By Grenville Kleiser
New Delhi: A.P. H. Publishing Corporation
2005
Pg. 2:
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. — Robert A. Heinlein
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David Grayless
@davidgrayless
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
—Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
11:32 AM - 20 Aug 2016