Top 1200 Unintended Consequences Quotes & Sayings

There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything.

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

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

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

parenting is an exercise in unintended consequences.

Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions.

Clearly there are always unintended consequences of any legislative or regulatory act that's taken in the heat of battle.

All history is the history of unintended consequences.

The uncontrolled and rapacious exploitation of oil has led to unintended consequences, and if we continue on a similar trajectory with water, the oil crisis will seem like the trailer of some horrible disaster movie.

There is a real danger of unintended consequences, of encouraging people to give up. Pessimism, if it becomes a habit, can reinforce a narrative of unstoppable decline. If there is nothing we can do, that releases us from our obligations.

The A.M.T. is much reviled by tax experts across the political spectrum for its unintended consequences and fiendish complexity.

The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren't the master of yourself anymore. Anger is. And when anger is the boss, you get unintended consequences.

I understand why there is a push for an automated strike zone. However, I do think there would be some unintended consequences of having it that I think need to be addressed first before we would go down that road.

I hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy - worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

Even limited military actions end up carrying with them great costs and unintended consequences.

Globalization is not a monolithic force but an evolving set of consequences - some good, some bad and some unintended. It is the new reality.

Over my career, I'd watched senior leader visits have unintended negative consequences. Typically, schedules were unrealistically overloaded and were modified during the visit to cancel parts of the plan.

That's one of the unintended consequences of the women's liberation movement - that, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be feminine, they would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children.

Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

Most of us tend to be swayed by what we read. Judges are not superhuman. They, too, are mortals. This is why they have to be exceptionally careful in rendering decisions, which cause unintended consequences.

The manufactured consensus of the IPCC has had the unintended consequences of distorting the science, elevating the voices of scientists that dispute the consensus, and motivating actions by the consensus scientists and their supporters that have diminished the public's trust in the IPCC.

I do think that I have a better sense of how military action can result in unintended consequences.

For the U.S., as the largest player in the global environment, unintended consequences are magnified.

We don't want to repeat the unintended consequences that surfaced following the NAFTA agreement.

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.

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 not enough to simply dismiss policy, because it's too complicated or we're scared about what the unintended consequences might be.

The sweeping, unfocused cuts of sequestration are certain to have unintended negative consequences, including for America's small businesses.

Unintended consequences get to the heart of why you never really understand an adaptive problem until you have solved it. Problems morph and "solutions" often point to deeper problems. In social life, as in nature, we are walking on a trampoline. Every inroad reconfigures the environment we tread on.

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.

My experience in government is there is a whole host of unintended consequences you have to think through. I can't un-know that, I find it harder now to offer simple solutions.

The concept of fair value accounting is correct and useful, but the application during periods of crisis is problematic. It's another one of those unintended consequences of making a rule that's supposed to be good that turns out the other way.

As a teenager, my dad taught me about the idea of unintended consequences, and I've had the experience, and how to deal with it, pounded into my soul over the years.

Call me an extremist but killing a few hundred million people seems like the sort of method that might have unintended consequences.

I think it's brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

New Zealand needs to balance its environmental responsibilities with its economic opportunities, because the risk is that if you don't do that - and you want to lead the world - then you might end up getting unintended consequences.

Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.

Any prediction worth its weigh would consider the spiritual, material, and unintended consequences of introducing a new technology to the world. It would proceed from the kind of understanding Chellis articulated: Life is Whole.

We need different perspectives here in Washington - someone who has private-sector experience, somebody who's actually created jobs, manufactures products, understands the incentives and disincentives, the intended and unintended consequences of legislation.

In the US, we consider our foreign policy as something rooted in the protection of American ideals of democracy and human development. However, we often fail to see the damaging consequences, many of which may be unintended, on others - including Christians - living in other parts of the world.

Secret ops by secret forces have a nasty tendency to produce unintended, unforeseen, and completely disastrous consequences. New Yorkers will remember well the end result of clandestine U.S. support for Islamic militants against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s: 9/11.

One of the unintended negative consequences of online advertising has been the loss of value in traditional classifieds. It's simply quicker, simply easier for an end user who's online, on a broadband connection, to look things up and to figure out what they want to buy.

I'm just worried about the unintended consequences of the laws.

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

In an ideal world, you don't want creatures where they shouldn't be because there's always unintended consequences.

We have a lot of talented people in this Congress, and we can avoid a lot of unintended consequences if we just included them.

The use of large-scale military force in volatile regions of underdeveloped countries is difficult to do right, has major unintended consequences and rarely turns out to be quick, effective, controlled and short lived.

I believe that life is chaotic, a jumble of accidents, ambitions, misconceptions, bold intentions, lazy happenstances, and unintended consequences, yet I also believe that there are connections that illuminate our world, revealing its endless mystery and wonder.

Unintended consequences, he thought miserably. He was angry at his anger, the way it surged up and took over.

The reason I am so negative about the Federal Reserve's policies is that they only target core inflation and argue that they can't identify bubbles, but when each bubble bursts, they flood the system with liquidity that brings about unintended consequences.

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.

If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years, it is surely that military intervention can seem simple but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.

Because my business partner, Mitt Romney, was running for president when 'Unintended Consequences' was published, the media held up my book as a defense of the 1 percent.

The internet is the most complex system that humans have ever invented. And with every internet enabled operation that we've seen so far, all of these offensive operations, we see knock on effects. We see unintended consequences.

Each money-printing exercise brings about unintended consequences. These unintended consequences are higher inflation rates than had no money been printed.

God always saves the world from the consequences of unintended errors of men who live in fear of Him.

Lawmakers who interfere with commerce and the normal creation of jobs in an economy run the risk of doing harm rather than good. Unintended consequences from regulating or legislating to achieve a goal can occur and cause havoc in the markets or an economy.

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.