Quotes About Consequences

The foundations of Empire are often occasions of woe; their dismemberment, always.

If I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living. But war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defence, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.

and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mineshafts into her and drag out her entrails—and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finger. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?

Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.

One pretty woman means fun at the dance. Two pretty women means trouble in the house. Three pretty women means run at the hills.

Kill a man who needs killing, and sometimes others pay for it. The question is, was it worth doing it anyway? There's always a balance, you know. Good and evil. Light and Shadow. We would not be human if there wasn't a balance.

Elayne, she said softly as they resumed their climb, if we are caught, I swear that before they kill us, or do whatever they do, I will beg them on bended knees to let me stripe you from top to bottom with the stoutest switch I can find!

A woman's love can be violent. Sometimes they hurt a man worse than they think they have, worse than they mean to. Sometimes, they're even sorry afterwards.

Battles can alter history. He did not sound pleased with it. The trouble is, sometimes you cannot say how history will be changed until it is too late.

Once he had a grove of oaks chopped down because they were looking at him. And then insisted that they would be given decent funerals; he gave the orations. Do you have any idea how longs it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?

how could you possibly look ten women in the face and ask why they had gotten you drunk and made a game of taking your clothes off and putting you to bed?

You do not realize what it means that you force the form of the Age Lace, do you? The ripples of your actions, the ripples of your very existence, spread across the threads of which you will never be aware. The battle is far from yours alone. Yet you stand in the heart of this web in the Pattern. Should you fail, and fall, all fails and fall.

You bore a hole in the boat and worry that it's raining.

Whether or not what you do has the effect you want, it will have three at least you never expected, and one of those usually unpleasant.

Anger made for hasty decisions and rash words that sometimes were hard to take back.

As far as he was concerned, a man who decided to rob and kill deserved what he got when he lost the game. He did not dwell on them, but neither did he jerk his eyes away if they fell on one of the robbers.

The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a people will be woven. It gave us the Breaking of the World, and the Exile, and Stone, and the Longing, and eventually it gave us back the stedding before we all died. Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the way you are is because your threads are so short.

Once mere excuses are allowed, inevitably lesser and lesser excuses will become acceptable, until law itself is gone.

Men kept sticking their hands in the fire thinking this time it would not burn, so

You tossed him aside for the White Tower. Why should you care if I pick him up?

Clutch the bramble, and you will be pricked

If anyone could break any rule they chose, do whatever they chose, and escape punishment merely by doing some good to balance it, the world would be chaos.

Fools deserved whatever their foolishness brought.