125 Unintentionally Quotes

Following is our list of unintentionally quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about how to explain.

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Famous Unintentionally Quotes

Omissions are not accidents. — Marianne Moore

He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention — Adam Smith

They don't know it, but they are doing it. - Karl Marx

They don't know it, but they are doing it. — Karl Marx

Bad decisions, good intentions. — Drake

Intuition (is) perception via the unconscious — Carl Jung

The unconscious works without your knowledge and that is the way it prefers. — Milton H. Erickson

...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly. — Chinua Achebe

Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence. — James Anthony Froude

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

There is wickedness in the intention of wickedness, even though it be not perpetrated in the act. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself. — Tilopa

Sometimes things go right by accident, and you are left with the dangerous illusion that it was your doing. — Michael Abrashoff

Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. — T. S. Eliot

More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy. — Jeff Greenfield

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. - J. K. Rowling

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. — J. K. Rowling

Short Unintentionally Quotes

  • 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
  • Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude. — Oscar Wilde
  • Historically, you've had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people. — Ava DuVernay
  • Appropriate action means to advance your own goals, without unintentional harm to anyone else. — Steven Brust
  • Crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favors evil. — Dallas Willard
  • A gentleman is someone who never gives offense unintentionally. — Eva Brann
  • I have hurt people. It was unintentional, but nevertheless, there was damage done. — John Rocker
  • A gentleman never offends unintentionally — Oscar Wilde
  • All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies. — George Bernard Shaw

Unintentionally Image Quotes

Unintentional Hurt 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

And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. — Margaret Atwood

It's easy to explain away evil. We have a free choice, and our greatest blessing is also our greatest curse, because I don't always make good choices. Other people make bad choices. I make bad choices. And sometimes we hurt other people. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. — Rick Warren

I had a couple of experiences as a kid with animals where I hurt them, kind of unintentionally, and when I saw that a human being can hurt an animal it really affected me. And my kids...they became animal rights activists. — Sean Astin

How To Explain Quotes

I wonder how biology can explain the physical pain you feel in your chest when all you want to do is be with someone. — Dan Howell

Our problem, from the point of view of psychology and from the point of view of genetic epistemology, is to explain how the transition is made from a lower level of knowledge to a level that is judged to be higher. — Jean Piaget

In order to win, you must play your best golf when you need it most, and play your sloppy stuff when you can afford it. I shall not attempt to explain how you achieve this happy timing. — Bobby Jones

I cannot explain it; but when difficulties arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them. — Anne Sullivan Macy

I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows. — Emily Carr

There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me. — Raymond Carver

The Holy Bible is an abyss. It is impossible to explain how profound it is, impossible to explain how simple it is. — Ernest Hello

No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? — Albert Einstein

I know this is a bit redundant, but it is really hard to explain just how loud Tiger Stadium is when you're standing on the field. The crowd is moving and swaying so much, and in so many directions, it makes the stands look blurry, like a pointillist painting. — Wright Thompson

So, like I asked, what’s with the nightie?” “It smells like what I always think mothers smell like,” I tell him honestly, knowing I don’t have to explain. He nods. “My mum has one just the same and you have no idea how disturbing it is that it’s turning me on. — Melina Marchetta

When There Is No Value Quotes

There is no way anything of value can be done without some framework. It might well be that the framework is discarded or the rules opposed; that is not important. What is essential is that they exist so that one knows when one is in opposition to them. — Margot Fonteyn

Developing inner values is much like physical exercise. The more we train our abilities, the stronger they become. The difference is that, unlike the body, when it comes to training the mind, there is no limit to how far we can go. — Dalai Lama

There is no situation that could ever confront you that cannot be solved. Life takes on real meaning when you set values for yourself, regard yourself as worthwhile and elevate your thoughts to things that are of God-good. There is a Higher Power. Turn to it and use it; it is yours for the asking. — Bryan Adams

We aren't bodies at all; who we are is the love inside us, and it is that love alone that determines our value. When our minds are filled with light, there is no room for darkness. — Marianne Williamson

A different species a different set of values a world completely unlike your own. There is a feeling you can only get when you meet the unknown and open your mind. - Nakajima (Gin no Saji) — Hiromu Arakawa

It's a huge thing when people realize across the culture that paper money is paper. And that there's no fixed value - it's all political. That all value is set by a political authority, basically. — John Currin

We should challenge the relativism that tells us there is no right or wrong, when every instinct of our mind knows it is not so, and is a mere excuse to allow us to indulge in what we believe we can get away with. A world without values quickly becomes a world without value. — Jonathan Sacks

There is no solution or perfect model you can follow. The best thing I can say is you've got to get close to what you really value. When you strip away your role as a parent, as a mother, and as an executive, what really makes your heart sing? How can you make your mark? — Maureen Chiquet

And it is a quiet terrible thing, too, to discover the value of love this way [after loss] - when the object of love is no longer there, when love dies or goes away or changes. When it is too late. — Vera Nazarian

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other. — Neal Cassady

Unintended Quotes

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way. — Margaret J. Wheatley

Unintended consequences are life’s way of showing you the possibilities you haven’t thought about. — Mahatria Ra

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. — Viktor E. Frankl

War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results. — Joseph Sobran

Conservatives tend to be very skeptical of change. When something could be improved, they often get in the way of those improvements because they fear the unintended consequence perhaps more than they should. — Bret Weinstein

The truth is women use contraception not only as a way to prevent unintended pregnancies, but also to improve their health and the health of their families. Increased access to contraception is directly linked to declines in maternal and infant mortality. — Felicity Huffman

The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction-that same-sex couples and their children don't need marriage because same-sex couples can't produce children, intended or unintended-is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously. — Richard Posner

He came to help her with her eyeliner and blinded her. — Moroccan Proverbs

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence. — Aaron Sorkin

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

Inadvertently Quotes

The concept of 'safe spaces' can inadvertently stifle intellectual growth and hinder progress. — Bret Weinstein

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

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

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

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

People Writing About Unintentionally

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde
quotes on love, love and marriage and life

1908 25561
Read quotes by Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore
quotes on love, education and life

115 585
Read quotes by Adam Smith

Adam Smith
quotes on economics, capitalism and human nature

191 2545
Read quotes by Karl Marx

Karl Marx
quotes on capitalism, leadership and money

406 7911
Read quotes by Drake

Drake
quotes on friendship, success and love

604 10515
Read quotes by Carl Jung

Carl Jung
quotes on love, life and soul

804 13370

More Unintentionally Quotes

[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

Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the honesty of your vision, the unsentimental acknowledgment of the endless interest of the life around and within you. Virtually nobody can help you deliberately-many people will help you unintentionally. — Santha Rama Rau

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

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

Finally, you had to measure yourself by other people - there really was nothing else. every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone taught you something about yourself. — Ian McEwan

By various agencies, unintentional and designed, a society transforms uninitiated and seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own resources and ideals. Education is thus a fostering, a nurturing, a cultivating, process. — John Dewey

If you the American citizen leave a child in a hot car and that child was harmed by that you will be charged with negligence even if your action was unintentional. — Bill O'Reilly

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. — Ben Okri

When you hit send on a text or tweet, you lose ownership of it - but you don't lose responsibility. Every text you have sent may have been saved and could be out there waiting to be used in ways you didn't imagine. Even the most simple of posts can be used out of context, often unintentionally, and change your future. — Mark Cuban

Many say an art dealer running a museum is a 'conflict of interest.' But maybe the art world has lived an artificial or unintentional lie all of these years when it comes to conflicts of interest. — Jerry Saltz

A lot of "successful" people are tragedies, because what they've accomplished aren't the things they wanted. Intentionally create the question "how" instead of accidentally relenting to the question of "should." If I'm not intentionally choosing a good attitude, I'm almost always unintentionally choosing a negative one. — Rory Vaden

I'm not a very intentional writer. I try to be as unintentional as possible. What I basically try to do is invite the zeitgeist in to tea. — William Gibson

The inscrutability [of economics] is perhaps not unintentional. It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters. — Jack Vance

Back in the 1960s, the number of deaths each year from unintentional poisoning was 15 times greater than it is today. — Hal Stratton

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life... I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond. — Charles Dickens

Artists have been used over and over again since the early 1980s as the legitimizers of a neighborhood in New York. And entrepreneurial artists, meaning people who themselves start out as painters, musicians, dancers, and who open a café, a bar, a restaurant, or even a co-op art gallery - they unintentionally develop the kinds of attractions that bring the middle class with some kind of cultural ambition. — Sharon Zukin

I think it's somewhere in my head, in my travel space, and it just comes out. It's a visual thing that happens unintentionally. People will tell me, "You do realize you just spoke with that accent, right?" And I'll go, "Oh, did I?" So it's not something I think about. As we talk, I have a visual about my speech and it just comes out like that. If that makes any sense! — Grace Jones

I reach readers rather unintentionally, I think, and those readers likely connect with the slant, the off-kilter, the part of the road you can barely see from the well-traveled road. So, when I'm writing, I'm not thinking about audience at all. Instead, I'm trying to see behind those shrubs, down that hidden path. We're the weirdos of the world and there are so many weirdos. — Dawn Lundy Martin

I think to suggest that somehow Muslims aren't welcome in the USA, to suggest somehow that being a Muslim is incompatible with being western, unintentionally plays into the hand of Daesh and so-called Isis. — Sadiq Khan

I had no idea how many famous people [Andy Cohen] have unintentionally and hilariously insulted of late: Charlie Rose, his cousin Amber Rose, Tori Spelling. . . . the list goes on and on. — Anderson Cooper

I also think the women's movement has unintentionally contributed to the dishonoring of motherhood. It happened because we made such a big deal about our right to go out into the world. — Marianne Williamson

For straight, hetero people it's very easy to unintentionally say something that might not honor people's identities fully, and Grace Dunham is a really amazing educational resource. — Lena Dunham

Science, as it reaches the public mind, has both served to discredit and unintentionally reaffirmed mystical ideas. — Mitch Horowitz

Of course, no lyrics are ever unintentional, but I think bands like Wolf Parade and the Arcade Fire have a tendency to touch on big themes without really following through on them or tying them in to a particular logic. — Dan Bejar

As far as inner action is concerned, we are only rarely truly self-determined persons, for the major part of our conscious mental activity rather is an automatic, unintentional form of behavior on the subpersonal level. — Thomas Metzinger

We need to say that women have sex, have abortions, are at peace with the decision and move on with their lives. We need to say that is their right, and, moreover, it’s good for everyone that they have this right: The whole society benefits when motherhood is voluntary. When we gloss over these truths we unintentionally promote the very stigma we’re trying to combat. — Katha Pollitt

If sexuality is beginning in such a skewed way: that boys expect to receive sexual pleasure and girls are expected to give it without reciprocation, is that why young women, even unintentionally, turn to getting something else in return for sex? Whether it be popularity, career success, professional attention. — Cris Mazza

The reason our country looks the way it does is through social engineering that distinctly benefits suburban communities, exurban communities, and often white residents. And we are socially engineered in such a way as to, often unconsciously and unintentionally, but sometimes intentionally, perpetuate this divisive inequality. — Richard Benjamin

The tragic evils of our life are so commonly unintentional. We did not start out for that poor, cheap goal. That aim was not in our minds at all....Look to the road you are walking on. He who picks up one end of [a] stick picks up the other.He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

I have always seen myself as an athlete. Of course, I made the mistake of unintentionally opening the door to my private life by just a crack. I wouldn't do the same thing again. It has to be accepted that my private life is private, and if that isn't the case, I have to do something about it. — Oliver Kahn

I think unintentionally I gravitate towards concepts and topics that hit home or are something real we can all relate to. — Seth Gordon

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