Committee - a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.
A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.
It is necessary to get a lot of men together, for the show of the thing, otherwise the world will not believe. That is the meaning of committees. But the real work must always be done by one or two men.
A decision is what a man makes when he can't find anybody to serve on a committee.
'Referring the matter to a committee' can be a device for diluting authority, diffusing responsibility and delaying decisions.
The minute somebody joins a committee... they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots, and politics is a committee.
A conference is a gathering of people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to.
Any committee is only as good as the most knowledgeable, determined and vigorous person on it. There must be somebody who provides the flame.