Unanticipated Results Quotes

If our extinction proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realization, the doers of the deed will likely be quite taken aback on realizing that they have actually destroyed the world. Therefore I suggest that if the Earth is destroyed, it will probably be by mistake.

The law of unintended consequences, far more than the Constitution, is what governs the modern presidency.

History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.

The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.

The events we most desire do not happen; or, if they do, it is neither in the time nor in the circumstances when they would have given us extreme pleasure.

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

Sometimes you don't see the result that you expect.

Unexpected results are the rule rather than the exception.

Life sometimes doesn't work out exactly as we plan or hope for.

If I ask for money, all I get is advice. But if I ask for advice, I end up getting money.

Sometimes you don't know what a book is about until you are finished with it and you're talking about it.

I could never have imagined that firing 67 people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation.

You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted.

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.

The world does not have tidy endings. The world does not have neat connections. It is not filled with epiphanies that work perfectly at the moment that you need them.

You don't realize what you're going to get, and you can't prepare yourself for it.

It's nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn't think of.

The negative cautions of science are never popular.

All laws have unintended consequences.

People do things that turn out badly, often for the most benevolent of reasons.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn't even know you'd done.

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

Breakthroughs are by definition unpredicted events. Therefore predicting breakthroughs is a particularly difficult business.