Sometimes things go right by accident, and you are left with the dangerous illusion that it was your doing. — Michael Abrashoff
Sometimes a good idea comes to you when you are not looking for it. Through an improbable combination of coincidence, naivete and lucky mistakes. — Kary Mullis
Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. — Margaret J. Wheatley
Unintended consequences are life’s way of showing you the possibilities you haven’t thought about. — Mahatria Ra
Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. — T. S. Eliot
Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. — Lawrence Block
A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act. — James Thurber
The most decisive actions of our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future -- are, more often than not, unconsidered. — Andre Gide
Short Inadvertently Quotes
The concept of 'safe spaces' can inadvertently stifle intellectual growth and hinder progress. — Bret Weinstein
I would never kill a living thing, although I probably have inadvertently while driving automobiles. — Don Van Vliet
I tell people that I've now done one decent thing in my life. Albeit inadvertently. — Larry David
For most of my life, I did deliberately lead a private life and inadvertently led a public life. — Chelsea Clinton
I think the cleverness is inadvertent. — Mike Birbiglia
A gaffe is a politician inadvertently telling an inconvenient truth. — Michael Kinsley
The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a planned inadvertency. — Wilson Follett
Fortunately, I am accustomed to creating amusement inadvertently. — Graeme Simsion
I don't write books inadvertently. — A. N. Wilson
Unintentionally Quotes
You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge. Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone - profusely. But don't apologize for being who you are. — Danielle LaPorte
I don't have nothing to regret at all in the past, except that I might've unintentionally hurt somebody else or something. — Jimi Hendrix
[conductor Eugene Ormandy introduces Warfield to the audience in an unintentionally humorous way:] With us tonight is William Warfield, who is with us tonight. He is a wonderful man, and so is his wife. — Eugene Ormandy
I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble. — John Wayne
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally. — Oscar Wilde
A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude. — Oscar Wilde
And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. — Margaret Atwood
What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman. — Walker Evans
We are confronted by the appearance of social institutions unintentionally created, vital for the welfare of society, which are not the result of reasoned planning — Carl Menger
To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. — Linus Torvalds
Unwittingly Quotes
You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else's script. — John Taylor Gatto
Your self image is so powerful it unwittingly becomes your destiny. — Oscar Micheaux
I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf. — Pete Townshend
The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us. — Vladimir Nabokov
Sooner or later,
wittingly or unwittingly,
we must pay
for every intrusion
on the natural environment. — Barry Commoner
The brain is not a blind, reactive machine, but a complex, sensitive biocomputer that we can program. And if we don't take the responsibility for programming it, then it will be programmed unwittingly by accident or by the social environnement. — Timothy Leary
Among the lessons learned in my lifetime is the ease with which corruption can enter high places in the mask of friendship. Sometimes the recipient is not aware of the barbed hook under the gift; often, he who gives may not know but be the unwitting agent of a craftier mind. — Carlos P. Romulo
Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others. — Epictetus
The moth unwitting rushes on the fire, Through ignorance the fish devours the bait, We men know well the foes that lie in wait, Yet cannot shun the meshes of desire. — Bhartrhari
In the design of fission reactors man was not an innovator but an unwitting imitator of nature. — George Cowan
Seek refuge in Mary because she is the city of refuge. We know that Moses set up three cities of refuge for anyone who inadvertently killed his neighbor. Now the Lord has established a refuge of mercy, Mary, even for those who deliberately commit evil. Mary provides shelter and strength for the sinner. — Anthony of Padua
Obsessive use of meditative disciplines or perennial study of scripture and philosophy will never bring forth this wonderful realization, this truth which is natural to awareness, because the mind that desperately desires to reach another realm or level of experience inadvertently ignores the basic light that constitutes all experience. — Tilopa
God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray. — John Calvin
The more important reason why people shouldn't be afraid is, we're never going to inadvertently go and explain everything. We may learn everything about something, and we may learn something about everything, but we're never going to learn everything about everything. When you study science, and especially these realms of the biology of what makes us human, what's clear is that every time you find out something, that brings up ten new questions, and half of those are better questions than you started with. — Robert M. Sapolsky
Today we have a temporary aberration called "industrial capitalism" which is inadvertently liquidating its two most important sources of capital, the natural world and properly functioning societies.
No sensible capitalist would do that. — Amory Lovins
Some people just can’t seem to deal with any uncertainty in their lives, and time and time again they find themselves imprisoned in situations that kill their happiness, push them towards despair, and gradually disintegrate their self-esteem. They don’t realize that in their attempt to avoid uncertainty and the short-term discomfort it might bring, they’re actually inadvertently opting for long-term misery. — Steven Bartlett
Micromanaging erodes people's confidence, making them overly dependennt on their leaders. Well-meaning leaders inadvertently sabotage their teams by rushing to the rescue and offering too much help. A leader needs to balance assistance with wu wei, backing off long enough to let people learn from their mistakes and develop competence. — Diane Dreher
Let others know when they have hurt or angered you. By not speaking up when someone insults or mistreats you, you are inadvertently giving permission for him or her to continue to treat you in the same way in the future. — Beverly Engel
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them. — Terry Prachett
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them. — Terry Pratchett
In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes pure and simple slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another. — Bart D. Ehrman
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live. — William Cowper
Graphic designers should be literate in graphic design history.
Being able to design well is not always enough. Knowing the roots
of design is necessary to avoid reinvention, no less inadvertent plagiarism. — Steven Heller
It is my wish to die of unique causes, perhaps in a high-speed tricycle crash, a bizarre stapling incient, or as a result of inadvertently sucking my brains out through my ear while trying to untwist the vacuum hose. — Paula Poundstone
When life does not go our way or we inadvertently make a mistake, it is so easy to make excuses, place blame on others, or argue that circumstances were against us. But we only progress in life to the extent that we take responsibility for our actions and attitudes, and put forth the initiative necessary to create our own circumstances. — Stephen Covey
When you look at things like social media, that's an immensely powerful tool that I'm all in favor of. I think it's amazing. It's a powerful tool, and it's one that we're, as a species, still grappling with learning to use. It's like we've grown an extra tail and we inadvertently lash out and knock over all of the furniture. — Charlie Brooker
Poison or elixir, narcotic or aphrodisiac, whatever it was, this flower, relic of a day in the life of an accidental writer, an inadvertent counterfeiter leaving his traces in code, the birds were coming to try it, performing a dance for no one and flying up toward the moon. — Cesar Aira
The sin of inadvertence, not being alert, not quite awake, is the sin of missing the moment of life-live with unremitting alertness. — Joseph Campbell
In Philadelphia, I inadvertently came upon an edition of Robert Ingersoll's Essays and Lectures. This was an exciting discovery; his atheism confirmed my own belief that the horrific cruelty of the Old Testament was degrading to the human spirit. — Charlie Chaplin
Nirvana's success drew attention to a marketing demographic previously ignored by the mainstream, and inadvertently started a gold rush with advertising executives, product manufacturers, merchandise distributors, fashion coordinators, and rock imitators, the latter of whom have yet to equal the sincerity, power, and wit of Nirvana. — Kim Thayil
In a sense, Britain inadvertently, through its actions in Hong Kong, did more to reduce world poverty than all the aid programs that we've undertaken in the last century. — Paul Romer
Folks in the bottom half of the economy are already squeezed hard. They will be bloodied and bankrupt if economic policy inadvertently induces a recession. — William Greider
Nothing is known for sure, even the person who was there isn't entirely sure he or she had the same response as the other in that moment. One person might have fallen head over heels, the other might have been thinking about what to have for dinner and inadvertently making eye contact. — Sophie Blackall
Injury is the thing every exhausting piece of strategy and every single weapon is designed to bring into being: it is not something inadvertently produced on the way to producing something else but is the relentless object of all military activity. — Elaine Scarry
We inadvertently bombed the Chinese Embassy. But Clinton now is working very hard. He has sent a letter of apology to the Chinese. And, he's also given them a gift certificate for future nuclear secrets. — David Letterman
An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us. — Elon Musk
The estimated total number of iatrogenic deaths-that is, deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures in the US annually is 783,936.......while 553,251 died of cancer. — Gary Null
Someone told me about drama schools, and they seemed like mythological places - you can really go and be in drama classes all day? I inadvertently entered into this world where people wore bicycle clips and did song-and-dance routines in the corridors. — Nick Moran
George Jones is a national treasure and should be treated accordingly. A unique style so often emulated even inadvertently. — Keith Richards
He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man. — Samuel Johnson
It suits my own attitude toward the world and its people to believe that the Raven is this completely self-centered, uninvolved bringer of change, through inadvertence and accident, and so on... It's a version of the Raven myth for today, not for the time when it was created. — Bill Reid
Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors. — Thomas Browne
Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgments had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently? — Thomas Hardy
And so could you know it if you would only use the brains the good God has given you. Sometimes I really am tempted to believe that by inadvertence, He passed you by. — Agatha Christie
I remember saying things, but I have no idea what was said. It was generally a friendly conversation.” —Associated Press reporter Jack Sullivan, attempting to recount a 3 A.M. exchange we had at a dinner party and inadvertently describing the past ten years of my life. — Chuck Klosterman
You and I can become so dedicated to the will of God, we can be so driven by a false sense of purpose, that we might inadvertently take matters into our own hands and leave God completely out of the loop. — Charles R. Swindoll
Learn the value of a man's words and expressions, and you know him. Each man has a measure of his own for everything; this he offers you inadvertently in his words. He who has a superlative for everything wants a measure for the great or small. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
To lead a child (or anyone else!), even inadvertently, away from faithfulness, away from loyalty and bedrock belief simply because we want to be clever or independent is license no parent nor any other person has ever been given. — Jeffrey R. Holland
This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. — J. K. Rowling
Einstein said that genius begins where rules end. He did however help invent nuclear weapons inadvertently and we've plunged toward a new world order since then as a result. One world or none - it seems the path cannot change. I'd go with Robert Frost on taking the path not traveled. — James Dye
What I would pay much more attention to are the few points where the player can inadvertently make a career decision. Most players end up back-tracking, though some actually enjoy this. — Graham Nelson
In Conclusion
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