A Quote by Niall Ferguson
The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.
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What I have learned from studying counterfactual history is that the law of unintended consequences always kicks in no matter how secure you are in your plan. We have to live with the historical record as it is, like it or not.
It is...highly probable that from the very beginning, apart from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The greatest thing that science teaches you is the law of unintended consequences.
The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.
So, I'm not the only one who believes that there is such a thing as "the law of gravity," and if it's a law, it can be violated. If you hit the ground at 120 mph from 1,000 feet, you will suffer the consequences of violating what physics.about.com calls the law of gravity.
The flow of action continually produces consequences which are unintended by actors, and these unintended consequences also may form unacknowledged conditions of actions in a feedback fashion. Human history is created by intentional activities but is not an intended project; it persistently eludes efforts to bring it under conscious direction.
The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law.
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern.
I have three degrees in history and only one in law, but since I came back to specialize in constitutional law where history is so essentially a part and an explanation of much that exists, the two disciplines blended very well.
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.
Good intentions can often lead to unintended consequences. It is hard to imagine a law intended for the workforce known to Henry Ford can serve the needs of a workplace shaped by the innovations of Bill Gates.
The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child.
Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.
Each money-printing exercise brings about unintended consequences. These unintended consequences are higher inflation rates than had no money been printed.
The only thing that can set aside a law as wrong is a better law, or an idea of a better law. And the only thing that an give a law the quality of better or worse is the concrete result which it promotes or fails to promote.
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