Quotes About Consequences

They think they are smart and powerful because they have contrived to use my gift to put up the boundary to lure us to this place. What they have actually done is to attract lightning, and that lightning is about to strike them down.

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

No. As Zedd is fond of saying, nothing is ever easy. How can we justify going after one little girl, to solve the riddle of her loaf of bread, while Rahl goes after the box?

The Wizard's Second Rule? What is that? Is it in the archives? Any student of magical lore should know it. The greatest harm can result from the best intentions. ...

since it's obvious that not having this baby

He encouraged me to take one more deep puff and hold it in, so I did, and the smoke traveled down on top of my esophagus and then did a U-turn up into where my brain was supposed to be. At first it felt like fireworks, and then I began to feel like I was floating down a stream. I liked it. And I took another puff and studied my ass off. The next morning, however, I would fail my very first Spanish exam, because I would not remember how to conjugate anything except Abraham.

An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!

Albert grunted. Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions? Mort thought for a moment. No, he said eventually, what? There was silence. Then Albert straightened up and said, Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.

Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.

There is always a choice. You mean I could choose certain death? A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right? When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts...

HOROSCOPE: Today is a good time for making new friends. A good deed may have unforeseen consequences. Don't upset any druids. You will soon be going on a very strange journey. Your lucky food is small cucumbers. People pointing knives at you are probably up to no good. PS, we really mean it about the druids.

Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.

And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.

Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people, mumbled Sam. Do they? said Vimes. Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it? 'cos they torture people.

Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.

Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for? he said. Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe? Absol—well, okay. Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor? All right, I'll grant you that, but— Saving civilization from a horde of— It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together, said Fred Colon sharply. Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?

History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

You can't say 'if this didn't happen then that would have happened' because you don't know everything that might have happened. You might think something'd be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can't say 'If only I'd…' because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you'll never know. You've gone past. So there's no use thinking about it.

A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say, 'Do not do this' in the hope that it'll work, but if it doesn't, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all.

He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...