“Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a violent storm on the other side of the earth. This principle is known as the "Butterfly Effect." Today, we realize, perhaps more than ever, that the world of human activity also has its own "Butterfly Effect"”
for better or for worse.
Nobel lecture (2001)
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Kofi Annan 60
7th Secretary-General of the United Nations 1938–2018Related quotes

Statement in the 1920s as quoted in Chanel (1987) by Jean Leymari

“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings.”
An assessment of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ch. 17
A Moveable Feast (1964)
Context: His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 389
Context: Marisol does a silly dance with Balder and the screw, one in each hand, so that nobody gets the idea that she takes tins — or anything else, for that matter — seriously. And just like that, something in the cosmos shifts. A butterfly flaps its wings in South America. Snow falls in Chicago. You give an idiot a stupid magic screw and it turns out to be a necessary part after all.

“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”
Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”