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Butterfly Effect Quotes

Browse 20 quotes about Butterfly Effect.

Butterfly Effect Quotes

“The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon Forest and causing a typhoon in the Pacific. Imagine the butterfly effect applied to your actions. A small act of kindness in your neighborhood or city gaining strength and spreading to benefit the many. Perhaps, that thought will make you think twice in moments of weakness.”

“Do you recall the tale I told you of our first meeting, Imp?” Prince Oberyn asked, as the Bastard of Godsgrace knelt before him to fasten his greaves. “It was not for your tail alone that my sister and I came to Casterly Rock. We were on a quest of sorts. A quest that took us to Starfall, the Arbor, Oldtown, the Shield Islands, Crakehall, and finally Casterly Rock … but our true destination was marriage. Doran was betrothed to Lady Mellario of Norvos, so he had been left behind as castellan of Sunspear. My sister and I were yet unpromised. “Elia found it all exciting. She was of that age, and her delicate health had never permitted her much travel. I preferred to amuse myself by mocking my sister’s suitors. There was Little Lord Lazyeye, Squire Squishlips, one I named the Whale That Walks, that sort of thing. The only one who was even halfway presentable was young Baelor Hightower. A pretty lad, and my sister was half in love with him until he had the misfortune to fart once in our presence. I promptly named him Baelor Breakwind, and after that Elia couldn’t look at him without laughing. I was a monstrous young fellow, someone should have sliced out my vile tongue.” Yes, Tyrion agreed silently. Baelor Hightower was no longer young, but he remained Lord Leyton’s heir; wealthy, handsome, and a knight of splendid repute. Baelor Brightsmile, they called him now. Had Elia wed him in place of Rhaegar Targaryen, she might be in Oldtown with her children growing tall around her. He wondered how many lives had been snuffed out by that fart.”

“She hadn't gone back in time. The idea was silly. Or had she? Had she knocked on the door of her home to see a younger version of herself answer; had there been a mutual shock of recognition (as the younger Rebecca realized that, yes, her husband's work was due to be a success, that he was not wasting his time chasing rainbows and tilting at windmills); had she slipped her arm into that of her past self (feeling a slight electric tingle as skin touched skin and a taste in her mouth as if she'd touched a nine-volt battery to her tongue) and said, We need to to talk? Had she sat in a coffee shop, conversing with a woman who everyone assumed was related to her in some way—Oh my god you two are so cute, you're mother and daughter but you look like sisters? Had she made some kind of idle remark overheard by a man on his way to spend two weeks' vacation in North Dakota; had that comment convinced that man to settle there permanently instead, and to contact those who had political sympathies similar to his own? Had that unknown man begun the slow process of taking over the state by placing his allies in the local governments if he could? Had that strategy failed, leaving brute force as a regrettable last resort?”

“There are moments in life when reason fails, when even the greatest genius is worth nothing. All the years studying, learning, training obscure the brutal fact that there are things we cannot know. A woman could pace out the distance between Dombâng and Rassambur, but the world is filled with spaces we can never measure, effects forever severed from their causes, furious motion for which the prime mover has been lost. It was possible Ananshael sent the spider, possible he did not. In the face of a god who resists all interrogation, the only way forward is faith.”

“Across the world millions of lives are altered by the absence of the dead, but three members of Teddy's last crew—Clifford the bomb-aimer, Fraser, the injured pilot, and Charlie, the tail-end Charlie—all bail out successfully from F-Fox and see out the rest of the war in a POW camp. On their return they all marry and have children, fractals of the future.”

“Be a flower. Be a seed. Let your growth arouse curiosity. Let it fascinate and amaze. Let it inspire the artist and the scientist. Let it shock the doubters. Let it grant hope to the hopeless. Let it begin in silence, and end with a loud bang. Don’t be an open book - be mysterious. Be extraordinary, be undefinable, be a ball of fiery fire, and above all, grow in silence, and let your success do the talking.”

“Our daily routines influence the lives of people and animals halfway across the world, and some personal gestures can unexpectedly set the entire world ablaze, as happened with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which ignited the Arab Spring, and with the women who shared their stories of sexual harassment and sparked the #MeToo movement.”

“Climate change may be far beyond the concerns of people in the midst of a life-and-death emergency, but it might eventually make the Mumbai slums uninhabitable, send enormous new waves of refugees across the Mediterranean, and lead to a worldwide crisis in healthcare.”

“Never before has information been so important, to governments and businesses alike. And please don't imagine that some of you gathered here today may be less concerned than others. Globalization means that the "butterfly effect" is everywhere at work. The mistakes of a stockbroker in Singapore or the collapse of the Baht in Bangkok, the decisions of a Finnish industrial concern, or what the Governor of Minas Gerais in Brazil decides to do about his State's debt, have had consequences for the world as a whole.”

“Within hours, tweetted piece of information you've just doled out has become a monsoon, a hurricane of tangible energy that is literally circulating the world. It's helped me sense the undeniable truth of quantum consciousness, the whole butterfly effect. I witness it daily. Being witness to it not only makes me come alive, it enables me to maintain hope.”