Consequences are unpitying.

Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that’s important. Self-discipline with awareness of consequences.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Sometimes if you jump into something too quickly, you can screw up something that might have been good two years down the road.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

The U.S. has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs, and some of the worst outcomes. It’s also the only privatized system.

Just because you make a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

But if you – if what – the reports are true, what they’re saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that’s going to increase our costs, we knew that.

Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.

We are not punished for our sins, but by them.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.

Nothing good ever comes of violence.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Be extra careful in the work environment with those who like to maintain their position through charm and being political, rather than getting things done. They are very prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get results. They will slander and sabotage you without any warning.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

If I hit a man, his head is gonna go into the bleachers.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer – and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

The fact is, violence is not only not a beautiful thing, but it’s also very painful and not without consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim.

I can’t think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there’s been a reaction, there’s been no journalism. It’s cause and effect.

My success rate speaks for itself.

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.

War settles nothing.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy’s will are not allowed that luxury.

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn’t even know you’d done.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

May we do good everywhere as we have opportunity, and results will not be wanting!

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.

Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn’t make your house look any better.