Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Good intentions alone do not guarantee outcomes; external factors also play a significant role.
This quote by John Steinbeck emphasizes that human intentions, whether positive or negative, are often insufficient on their own to determine the results of our actions. It suggests that factors beyond our control, such as luck or fate, significantly influence the direction of our lives and the success of our endeavors, highlighting the complexity of existence and decision-making.
Themes
IntentionsLuckFateOutcomesControl
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational seminar to illustrate the importance of both effort and external circumstances.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes βAt one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
John SteinbeckRead
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
Yet if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a successive life is simply to transfer the onus of purpose to the next generation; the displacements amounts to a cowardly and potentially infinite delay. Your children's answer, presumably, will be to procreate as well, and in doing so to distract themselves, to foist their own aimlessness onto their offspring.
Lionel ShriverRead
The President to-night has a dream: - He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said: - "He is a very common-looking man". The President replied: - "The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them".
Abraham LincolnRead
The boundaries of democracy have to be widened so as to include economic equality also. This is the great revolution through which we are all passing.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labour as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.
Pope Leo XiiiRead
Without peace, there is little hope for human rights
Martin EnnalsRead
Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.
T. S. EliotRead