30 Unfortunate Quotes

“No dream ever entirely disappears. Somewhere it troubles some unfortunate person and some day, when that person has been sufficiently troubled, it will be reproduced on the lot.”

— Nathanael West

“I had an unfortunate habit of allowing my anger to blind me. An extremely unfortunate habit. Glate knew that, and he knew how to stop me from doing something stupid. He was my sense of reality in a world thrown off balance. But he wasn't here now.”

— Nicole Sobon

“You cannot go around and keep score. If you keep score on the good things and the bad things, you'll find out that you're a very miserable person. God gave man the ability to forget, which is one of the greatest attributes you have. Because if you remember everything that's happened to you, you generally remember that which is the most unfortunate.”

— Hubert H. Humphrey

“Here's the thing, effective parenting and, more specifically, effective discipline, don't require punishment. Equating discipline with punishment is an unfortunate, but common misconception. The root word in discipline is actually disciple which in the verb form means to guide, lead, teach, model, and encourage. In the noun form disciple means one who embraces the teaching of, follows the example of, and models their life after.”

— L.R. Knost

“These eggs are broken. Cracked."
"Yes, ma'am. That happens sometimes."
"Does it?"
"Yes, it's the unfortunate part of being an egg.”

— Peter Hedges

“We are all different. God made us that way. Drawing a line in the sand due to that is indeed unfortunate.”

— Jill Telford

“It is an unfortunate fact that proofs can be very misleading. Proofs exist to establish once and for all, according to very high standards, that certain mathematical statements are irrefutable facts. What is unfortunate about this is that a proof, in spite of the fact that it is perfectly correct, does not in any way have to be enlightening. Thus, mathematicians, and mathematics students, are faced with two problems: the generation of proofs, and the generation of internal enlightenment. To understand a theorem requires enlightenment. If one has enlightenment, one knows in one's soul why a particular theorem must be true.”

— Herbert S. Gaskill

“The driver's side door of the car was shoved open, and Lindsey was sure she'd scared the poor driver as much he'd scared her. "I'm all right!" she called out. "Well, that's unfortunate!" Lindsey”

— Jenn McKinlay

“I had an aunt named 'abnormal Shauna' once. But she passed away in an unfortunate cliff-top interpretative dance and fireworks accident.”

— Joshua Donellan

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”

— Lemony Snicket

“Death is the privilege of human nature
And life without it were not worth our taking
Thither the poor, the unfortunate, and Mourner
Fly for relief & lay their burdens down.”

— Elizabeth Fama

“How unfortunate that sailing was one of the few occupations where a man could be praised for failing, so long as he did it bravely.”

— Alexandra Bracken

“White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want. And this assumption-which, for example, makes the solution to the Negro problem depend on the speed with which Negroes accept and adopt white standards-is revealed in all kinds of striking ways, from Bobby Kennedy's assurance that a Negro can become President in forty years to the unfortunate tone of warm congratulation with which so many liberals address their Negro equals.”

— James Baldwin

“Even if, by some especially unfortunate fate or by the niggardly provision of stepmotherly nature, [the good will] should be wholly lacking in the power to accomplish its purpose; if with the greatest effort it should yet achieve nothing, and only the good will should remain (not, to be sure, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in our power), yet would it, like a jewel, still shine by its own light as something which has its full value in itself.”

— Immanuel Kant

“Well, nine times out of ten when you have 2 or 3 stars in a household you have an unfortunate amount of competition that's not necessarily a healthy competition.”

— Edwin Starr

“It's 5 P.M. at the office. Working fast, you've finished your tasks for the day and want to go home. But none of your colleagues have left yet, so you stay another hour or two, surfing the Web and reading your e-mails again, so you don't come off as a slacker. It's an unfortunate reality that efficiency often goes unrewarded in the workplace.”

— Robert Pozen

“I think that's most unfortunate about our Democratic system, that you're confining it to people who are either very wealthy in their own right or have capacity to gain access to large amounts of money.”

— Birch Bayh

“Like, if you look at Heidi Montag, who got 10 surgeries she didn't need, I think that's unfortunate. I've always been voluptuous with a big butt, but didn't have boobs, so I wanted my body balanced out. My nose was fine in real life, but it didn't photograph well, so I had it tweaked for my line of work. I'm very happy with it.”

— Holly Madison

“It's an unfortunate fact that I'm easily discouraged. But the fortunate truth is I'm stubborn as hell and near impossible to sway in my resolve.”

— Richelle E. Goodrich

“Scientists are skeptics. It's unfortunate that the word 'skeptic' has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it's just thoughtful inquiry.”

— Michael Shermer

“Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have played at war-that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's”

— Leo Tolstoy

“Note accordingly that in all countries the penalties for petty theft are extremely severe, not only as a means of defending society, but also as a stern admonition to the unfortunate to know their place, stick to their caste, and behave themselves, joyfully resigned to go on dying of hunger and misery down through the centuries forever and ever ...”

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

“Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Sometimes, even in the most unfortunate of lives, there will occur a moment or two of good fortune.”

— Lemony Snicket

“It dawned on them that unlike Aunt Josephine, who had lived up in that house, sad and alone, the three children had one another for comfort and support over the course of their miserable lives. And while this did not make them feel entirely safe, or entirely happy, it made them feel appreciative.
They leaned up against one another appreciatively, and small smiles appeared on their damp and anxious faces. They had each other. I'm not sure that "The Beaudelaires had each other" is the moral of this story, but to the three siblings it was enough. To have each other in the midst of their unfortunate lives felt like having a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane, and to the Beaudelaire orphans this felt very fortunate indeed.”

— Lemony Snicket

“I'm so worried that I'm going to perfect [my] technique someday. I have to say its unfortunate how many of my pictures do depend upon some technical error.”

— Sally Mann

“This common and unfortunate fact of the lack of adequate presentation of basic ideas and motivations of almost any mathematical theory is probably due to the binary nature of mathematical perception. Either you have no inkling of an idea, or, once you have understood it, the very idea appears so embarrassingly obvious that you feel reluctant to say it aloud ...”

— Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

“The greatness and efficacy of a magician is measured by his refusal to use magic. The true magician, the greatest, is the poorest and most unfortunate of all mortals. Because between his magic and his person forgetfulness takes shape, in the form of the world.”

— Cesar Aira

“Experience shows that what great role pratice and experience play in education; pratice, the prolonged exercice lead to habit: exemple suggests imitation. Habit can become a second nature, but, wrongly directed (or guided), it may also heighten (or intensify) unfortunate tendencies and be an obstacle to progress.”

— African Spir

“AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty; whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind.”

— Francis Bacon

“It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed
and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn's election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.”

— Frederic Bastiat

“It is extremely unfortunate that an editor's own life and practice should be notoriously at variance with his written principles.”

— Victoria Woodhull

“Doubtless the lunatic asylums of the world are filled with unfortunate women who have failed to see my charms.”

— Cassandra Clare

“Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.”

— Luc De Clapiers

“It is an unfortunate fact that in many parts of the world women are considered property. An awful lot of injustice is obviously due to that; not just women's status in the home, but all kinds of laws that are even more discriminating.”

— Madeleine Albright

“The modern poet has no essential alliance with regular schemes of any sorts.He reserves the right to adapt his rhythm to his mood, to modulate his metre as he progresses. Far from seeking freedom and irresponsibility (implied by the unfortunate term free verse) he seeks a stricter discipline of exact concord of thought and feeling.”

— Herbert Read

“I never thought about whether film is inherently more sincere, because certainly I think if Guy Maddin had directed A Series Of Unfortunate Events, there probably could have been more of the stage-y irony that is in the books. But I was just interested to see what people would do with it, and worrying that Brad Silberling wouldn't do what I had in mind.”

— Daniel Handler

“We are talking about mutated women, the result of cruel genetic experiments performed by fashion designers so lacking in any sense of human decency that they think nothing of putting their initials on your eyeglass lenses. The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates. If a normal woman puts on clothing designed for these unfortunate people, she is quite naturally going to look like Revenge of the Pork Person.”

— Dave Barry