Success Quote by Bo Bennett

“Peeves do not make very good pets” is a businessman’s self-help jab disguised as a cute domestic image. Bennett takes something abstract and corrosive - the little grudges, irritations, and recurring complaints that people nurture - and renders it absurd by putting it on a leash. The line works because it flips the usual relationship: you think your “peeves” are servants of clarity (“I’m just being discerning”), but he’s suggesting they’re actually dependents you keep feeding.

The intent is pragmatic: stop investing attention in the things that reliably sour your mood. In a business context, that’s not just personal wellness; it’s operational. Leaders who “keep peeves” create cultures where minor inefficiencies become moral offenses, where teams spend more time tiptoeing around a manager’s pet annoyance than solving the actual problem. The metaphor also sneaks in a warning about habit formation: pets require routine care, and so do grievances. If you rehearse the same irritations every day, they become part of your identity - predictable, needy, and hard to rehome.

Subtextually, Bennett is arguing for selective focus without sounding like a spreadsheet. “Peeves” are small enough to feel harmless, even witty, but they’re also the easiest entry point into chronic negativity. By framing them as bad pets, he implies a choice: you can stop adopting them. It’s an anti-rumination slogan for a productivity age, where attention is currency and your mood is part of your output.