Unintentional Consequences Quotes

We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not.

Men may boast of their great actions; but they are more often the effects of chance than of design.

Everyone saves someone at least once. Just as he kills someone at least once. Even though he may not know it.

I think we need to be very careful if we want to do things like further modify our atmosphere. And similarly, I think we need to be very worried about unintentional modification, which is basically what's been going on.

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.

Most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders—serve the state chiefly with their heads; and ... are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.

If I upset some notions and went against established rules, that wasn't part of what I wanted to do. It wasn't my goal.

Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.

She was a do-gooder, which means that all the ill she did, she did without realizing it.

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm.

I believe that much of the maladjustment in our societies is caused, not by malevolence and corruption, but simply by ignorance.

Good intentions have been the ruin of the world. The only people who have achieved anything have been those who have had no intentions at all.

I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.

You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.

In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent.

Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while.

You realize that these accidental decisions you make about changing jobs, about moving into an apartment where you make new friends and confidants, about going to one city over another, that sometimes they're completely arbitrary decisions that you haven't put as much thought into as perhaps you should have, and yet they change the course of your whole life.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

Unfortunately, there tends to be an easy way of doing things in life and the Haskell way. As a 12-year-old I knocked my front teeth out while chasing a friend in the rain. I'm the type who offers to serve wine at drinks parties and accidentally pours it down one of the guests.

The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.

How much wrong have we done unintentionally, meaning the best

Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.