Secret ops by secret forces have a nasty tendency to produce unintended, unforeseen, and completely disastrous consequences. New Yorkers will remember well the end result of clandestine U.S. support for Islamic militants against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s: 9/11.
Tendency
I’ve found that if I tell somebody ‘Eat this and don’t do that,’ it’s not only not helpful, it’s counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there’s a tendency to do just the opposite.
The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.
Fantasy is the tendency of Americans, going back to colonial times, to look at the Middle East as a type of fractured mirror of the United States – a type of mirror that could look a lot more like the United States, if, say, a Middle Eastern George Washington would emerge.
Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.
Just being aware of what you are about to do greatly diminishes the tendency to do what you don’t want to. You will pull your hand back from that pizza slice, tell the waitress that you are passing on dessert, put on your gym shoes instead of going under the comforter, and take several deep breaths instead of screaming at your daughter.
We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.
The chief symptom of adolescence is a state of expectation, a tendency towards creative work, and a need for the strengthening of self-confidence. Suddenly, the child becomes very sensitive to the rudeness and humiliations which he had previously suffered with patient indifference.
The tendency in lots of large organizations is to try and find a comfortable place where you think you can get measured rewards for measured work.
I guess my tendency is to think essentially that the new wrinkles won’t do the job if the old major idea didn’t, and so you have to try something different. Then maybe they can all be combined in some coherent piece.