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As fans of The Office know, there’s no denying that Michael Scott wasn’t exactly the most eloquent wordsmith. He was constantly trying to inspire his employees and showcase what he believed to be a deep wellspring of business and life wisdom, only to consistently put his foot in his mouth. Despite Michael’s lack of self-awareness he would often come close to saying something deep, only to muck it up in the end. So, with that in mind, let these Michael Scott quotes and self-reflections inspire you, or almost inspire you.
“Make friends first, make sales second, make love third. In no particular order.”
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The first part of this business pep talk isn’t half-bad. Sure, it’s weird to have your boss tell you to “make love,” and Michael on more than one occasion crossed over into sexual-harassment territory with his staff, but the friends and sales part is solid. A salesperson who can’t build and maintain solid relationships with clients isn’t going to be closing much. The second part of the quote is where Michael screws things up and ruins an almost solid piece of advice.
“Fool me once, strike one. But fool me twice, strike three.”
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This Michael Scott gem isn’t quite as bad as George W. Bush’s famous fumbling of this famous saying, but it’s not far off. If anything, it tells us that Michael probably gets fooled on a regular basis in life and that Dwight had little to fear about sneaking around behind his boss’ back.
“People will never be replaced by machines. In the end, life and business are about human connections. And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake. And to me the choice is easy.”
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Michael couldn’t stand it when Ryan moved past him on the corporate ladder at the end of season three and wanted nothing more for the new Dunder Mifflin website than to fail. In the end, Ryan’s online shopping cart didn’t fare so well and his launch party was a bust, leaving Michael to ponder the role of technology in the workplace. “Life and business are about human connections,” okay, seems spot-on… “And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake,” and there’s the sharp left turn everyone was waiting for.
“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”
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This one seems like it would fit in perfectly with the thinking of an out-of-touch dictator or perhaps a sociopath. Michael makes it very apparent how much he desires to be liked and viewed as the cool boss in the eyes of his employees. So much so that he regularly puts it above being respected and finds himself in the position of company doormat. All in all, this little nugget of leadership wisdom isn’t particularly terrible, it just doesn’t really capture how Michael’s employees generally feel about him.
“Is there a god? If not, then what are all these churches for? And who … is Jesus’ dad?”
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A Michael Scott spin-off web series where he gives philosophy lectures would have been completely idiotic, and I would have watched every second of it. Michael fashions himself as a deep thinker but routinely shows that he has no idea what he’s talking about within seconds of opening his mouth. Feel free to throw this line out in Sunday school and get ready to watch the jaws drop.
“I’d like to start today by inspiring you. May I borrow someone’s textbook, please? You cannot learn from books. Replace these pages with life lessons and then, you will have… a book worth its weight in gold.”
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Ryan really should have known better than to invite Michael to speak to his business-school class. No good was ever going to come from the situation, and the entire ordeal likely had students changing their majors by the end of the afternoon. Michael starts off promising to inspire them, but only ends up destroying a textbook and cheating a student out of a couple hundred bucks. And if the embarrassing speech wasn’t enough, he also ruined a perfectly good round of Frisbee earlier in the episode.
“Yesterday I was scraping some gunk off my wall sockets with a metal fork and I gave myself the nastiest shock. And when I came to, I had an epiphery. Life is precious. And if I die I want my son to know the dealio. The dealio of life.”
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It would have been great to get a quick flashback to Michael accidentally electrocuting himself, but then again, we didn’t get to actually see him burn his foot on a George Foreman grill either. Regardless, the act of stupidity obviously had an impact on Michael (he did have an “epihery,” after all), because he felt inspired enough to make a video for his unborn son. You can’t fault the guy for wanting to pass down some knowledge “if” he dies, but no great wisdom ever started with “dealio.”
“You know sometimes, to get perspective, I like to think about a spaceman on a star incredibly far away. And, our problems don’t matter to him, because we’re just a distant point of light. But he feels sorry for me, because he has an incredibly powerful microscope, and he can see my face. I’m okay. No, I’m not.”
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“Stress Relief” was full of Michael kicking himself when he was down and after the roast he headed to a nearby playground to “get perspective.” In Michael’s mind the entire universe truly does revolve around him with even far-off space people checking in on him to make sure he’s feeling alright. There’s a certain poetry to Michael’s torment, and you almost feel sorry for him — until he looks up to the sky and waves to his spaceman.
“I, understand — nothing.”
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Michael and Charles clashed right from the start because, well, Charles is a boss who behaves like a boss. It’s not long before Charles confronts Michael in the parking lot and tells him how things are going to run in the office moving forward. Rather than put together anything even resembling a well-thought-out rebuttal to Charles’ management style, Michael goes with the third-grader approach. Stupid or possibly brilliant?