Chain Reaction Quotes

Nuclear fission

Unintended Consequences

For the White House, victories beget victories and loses beget losses.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things.

practically nothing we do ever stands by itself. If it is good, it will serve some good purpose in the future. If it is evil, it may haunt us and handicap our efforts in unimagined ways.

When the whole world is globalized, you're going to be able to set fire to the whole thing with a single match.

If I went to somewhere busy, I wouldn't last very long. I can't go to a museum - I'll last 10 or 15 minutes in a museum. The problem is that when one person asks for a photograph, then someone sees a flash goes off, then everyone else sort of... it's sort of like a domino effect.

My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it's a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That's a big step. Maybe without me, there wouldn't be Adam Lambert. Without Bowie, there wouldn't be me. Without Quentin Crisp, there wouldn't have been Bowie. So everything is part of a big daisy chain.

I hadn’t thought of that.

The action that I've started, sometime I'll have to face. My influence in motion, rebounding back through space.

If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.

No action is ever an isolated event. Always, it invites from the universe a reaction that corresponds exactly to the type and the force of energy behind the deed.

Realize that little things lead to bigger things.

For the impious act begets more after it, like to the parent stock.

Every little thing you do adds up, and before you know it, you've created your life. And how you create your life ripples out and affects everyone and everything that crosses your path, known or unknown to you.

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

We're talking about one region, bigger regions, not only about Syria. This interlinked region, this intermingled, interlocked, whatever you want to call it ; if you strike somewhere, you have to expect the repercussions somewhere else in different forms in ways you don't expect.

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

I'm just another link in the chain.

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.

When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.

if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.

every act of one's life is the unavoidable result of every act that has preceded it.

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed