“History admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.”

—  David Mitchell, book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 528
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 8, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "History admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates act…" by David Mitchell?
David Mitchell photo
David Mitchell68
English novelist 1969

Related quotes

Ken Binmore photo

“Nature cannot achieve the first-best outcomes to which those like Kant aspire because the latter are not incentive-compatible. That is to say, they are achievable only if the human beings who live in the society act in a manner that is incompatible with their nature.”

Ken Binmore (1940) British economist

Game Theory and the Social Contract (1994), p. 152 http://books.google.com/books?id=8cDiGo2REBIC&pg=PA152

Robert Mugabe photo

“The congress is due in a few weeks from now and I will preside over its processes, which must not be prepossessed by any acts calculated to undermine or to compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public.”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

During 2017 coup d&#x27;etat, as quoted in Xinhua http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-11/20/c_136765770.htm <br class="br">2010s

Alison Goodman photo

“History does not care about the suffering of the individual. Only the outcome of their struggles.”

Alison Goodman (1966) Australian science-fiction writer

Source: Eona: The Last Dragoneye

Erich Fromm photo

“Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

"Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem" in On Disobedience and Other Essays (1981)

Ayn Rand photo

“Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Margaret Fuller photo

“What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

http://books.google.com/books?id=VsMLYjEsyaEC&pg=PA446
Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446 (Beacon Press paperback edition)
1930s

Saul Bellow photo

“For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (1976), p. 38
General sources

Related topics