Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.

In world history man’s actions result in something quite different from what he purposes or intends.

I have observed over the years that the unanticipated consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences.

People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.

People don't necessarily do evil deeds because they want to; people happen to do something with horrible consequences even if they meant to be kind.

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

We begin by trying to alter what we can see, but the tremors which our action starts sometimes run through the entire depth our society; levels to which we pay no conscious attention are stirred, and all kinds of unintended results ensue.

Actions can have unintended adverse consequences.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

Everybody wants the world to be a better place, and some think that government actions can bring that about. But they don't take into consideration that government actions can often do more harm than good.

An authentic faith-which is never comfortable or completely personal-always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it.

The greatest thing that science teaches you is the law of unintended consequences.

In history, good intentions do not always make good consequences

Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things.

We can only live changes: we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, every group, must become the model of that which we desire to create.

One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change.

Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.

Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?

What is forgotten, however, is that many times the Good we create leads to Evil that will destroy us.

Men of thoughtless actions are always surprised by consequences.

Be careful what you yearn for, because that which you desire most will either complete you or destroy you, and you don't get to choose.

When combined, the small individual contributors of caring, friendship, forgiveness, and love, each of us different from our next-door neighbors, can form a phalanx, an army, with great capability.

Additional problems are the offspring of poor solutions.

I am of the opinion, and have been for a long time, that any kind of big technological move is almost always positive in the short term but inevitably somewhat negative in the long term. And I think there are many examples of this in every possible context.

Prohibitions create the desire they were intended to cure.