Quotes About Consequences

Our words will swallow us. We have spat them out, but in the end they will drown us

Worse things have been done than that. Yes, much worse. Yet perhaps the death of the very innocent always carries a curse.

If you don't want a man dead, don't bludgeon him over the head repeatedly.

A robber who steals a knife and cuts himself cannot cry out against the woman who kept it sharp.

For the past 150 years, industrial civilization has been dining on the energy stored in fossil fuels, and the bill has come due. Yet, we have sat around the dinner table denying that it is our bill, and doubting the credibility of the man who delivered it.

What are the relative risks of ignoring scientific claims that turn out to be true versus acting on claims that turn out to be false?194 The risks of not flossing are real, but not inordinate. The risks of not acting on the scientific evidence of climate change are inordinate.

when the consequences of our scientific conclusions are non-epistemic—i.e., when they are moral, ethical, political, or economic—it is almost inevitable that our values will creep into our judgments of evidence.

Those "irresponsible" environmentalists had been right: the emissions had not come down in harmless traces, but as acid rain. This could have been avoided had the power companies done the right thing and controlled pollution at the source, rather than attempting to get around air quality standards by building taller smokestacks and attacking environmentalists.

We take it for granted that great individuals—Gandhi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King—can have great positive impacts on the world. But we are loath to believe the same about negative impacts—unless the individuals are obvious monsters like Hitler or Stalin. But small numbers of people can have large, negative impacts, especially if they are organized, determined, and have access to power.

The most terrible thing about terrorism, the thing that people fond of saying "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" didn't get, was that even siding with the terrorists gave you no immunity. The terrorist never knew his victims, and didn't give a damn. When you sided with them, you were taking sides against yourself.

Rabbi Yohonan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that to wound with words is much worse than to cheat in business, because you can give back the money you steal but you can never restore the pride of the person you hurt.

I don't think you're supposed to speak ill of the dead." "When the dead are spineless bastards who don't take care of their own children, I'll say whatever the fuck I want.

It's better to know the truth and suffer the consequences than live in the lie.

This would never have happened if you had just found her for me when I asked you to," I explode, rounding on him. "This is why she disappeared. She found out she was pregnant." "You don't know that." "I have a child out there, Yef. A boy. And he doesn't know who his father is.

If this man is so cold-blooded that he can kill a lifelong friend for his son's mistake, he's not going to think twice about getting rid of Max and me.

From triumph to downfall there is but one step. I have noted that, in the most momentous occasions, mere nothings have always decided the outcome of the greatest events.

At twenty-two many things are allowed which are no longer permitted past thirty

A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.

In war, groping tactics, half-way measures, lose everything.

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

Hay ladrones a los que no se castiga, pero que roban lo más preciado: el tiempo.

The man fitted for affairs and authority never considers individuals, but things and their consequences.

La felicità, – lui disse, – sembra sempre niente, è come l'acqua, e si capisce solo quando è perduta. – È vero, – lei disse. E pensò un poco, e disse: – E anche il male che noi facciamo, è così, sembra niente, sembra una sciocchezza, acqua fresca, mentre lo facciamo. Se no allora la gente non lo farebbe, starebbe più attenta.