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.
 
Google Books
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.
 
Google Groups: comp.sys.att
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.
   
Google Groups: rec.boats
Harry? Jeff? Re: FAIR WARNING TO ALL
Harry Krause
11/25/98
(...)
Committee: A life-form with twelve mouths and no brain.
 
Google Books
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.
   
Google Books
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.
 
Google Books
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