Backfire Quotes

Extrinsic reading rewards may not be necessary and may backfire. ~ Stephen D. Krashen

answered the phone; it was, in fact, the Times - the Los Angeles one. Jackie took the call, and by the time I could get unhooked from my homicidal seat belt and turned around to look, there was nothing to see except the usual mad, gleaming pack of angry, overpowered vehicles. I scanned in all directions a couple of times, but I saw no cycles, and I heard no more popping backfire sounds. So I shrugged it off before we were even halfway to work, and thought no more about motorcycles. ~ Jeff Lindsay

Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong, especially in high tech. The world is changing so fast across every industry and endeavor that it's a given the role for which you're hiring is going to change. Yesterday's widget will be obsolete tomorrow, and hiring a specialist in such a dynamic environment can backfire. A specialist brings an inherent bias to solving problems that spawns from the very expertise that is his putative advantage, and may be threatened by a new type of solution that requires new expertise. A smart generalist doesn't have bias, so is free to survey the wide range of solutions and gravitate to the best one. ~ Eric Schmidt

If your attached friends are bugging you about being single (favourite accusation: "You're too picky!") turn it around on them. "Do you know any gorgeous single men I could meet?" (This could backfire if they're keen to set you up and their idea of "gorgeous" is vastly different from yours. And it will be.) Alternatively, be super-sweet and tell them you're waiting for your ideal partner "just like you did". (It won't work if you snigger at this point.) ~ Rosie Blythe

It is very difficult to know exactly what good should come out of a particular situation. To attempt to manipulate circumstances so your idea of good can come about, is to let the ego play God-and that, as you know, can and does backfire. ~ Neem Karoli Baba

Angry words backfire upon the speaker. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

With regard to complex trauma survivors, self-determination and autonomy require that the therapist treat each client as the "authority" in determining the meaning and interpretation of his or her personal life history, including (but not limited to) traumatic experiences (Harvey, 1996). Therapists can inadvertently misappropriate the client's authority over the meaning and significance of her or his memories (and associated symptoms, such as intrusive reexperiencing or dissociative flashbacks) by suggesting specific "expert" interpretations of the memories or symptoms. Clients who feel profoundly abandoned by key caregivers may appear deeply grateful for such interpretations and pronouncements by their therapists, because they can fulfill a deep longing for a substitute parent who makes sense of the world or takes care of them. However, this delegation of authority to the therapist can backfire if the client cannot, or does not, take ownership of her or his own memories or life story by determining their personal meaning.Moreover, the client can be trapped in a stance of avoidance because trauma memories are never experienced, processed, and put to rest. Helping a client to develop a core sense of relational security and the capacity to regulate (and recover from) extreme hyper- or hypoarousal is essential if the client is to achieve a self-determined and autonomous approach to defining the meaning and impact of trauma memories, a crucial goal of posttraumatic therapy. ~ Christine A. Courtois

I think the idea of trying to demonize Governor Romney's going to backfire. Their attempts so far have failed pretty outstandingly and I think at the end of the day, people are going to say, 'what was Obama's record?' Governor Romney's got pro-growth Reaganesque proposals on the table. ~ Steve Forbes

But instead of blaming women for not negotiating more, we need to recognize that women often have good cause to be reluctant to advocate for their own interests because doing so can easily backfire. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Tell them to teach them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire ~ Ralph Ellison

Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live without the internet or jet travel? The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far, it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry. Even when speed starts to backfire, we invoke the go-faster gospel. ~ Carl Honore

It is easy to misinterpret the child's counterwill as a drive for power. We may never be fully in control of our circumstances, but to raise children and to face their counterwill on a daily basis is to have our powerlessness driven home to us consistently. In present-day society it is neither surprising nor unusual for parents to feel tyrannized and powerless. With the sense of impotence we experience when child-adult attachments are not strong enough, we begin to see our children as manipulative, controlling, and even powerful. We need to get past the symptoms.

If all we perceive is the resistance or the insolence, we will respond with anger, frustration, and force. We must see that the child is only reacting instinctively whenever he feels he is being pushed and pulled. Beyond the counterwill we need to recognize the weakened attachment. The defiance is not the essence of the problem; the root cause is the peer orientation that makes counterwill backfire on adults and robs it of its natural purpose. The best response to a child's counterwill is a stronger parental relationship and less reliance on force. ~ Gabor Mate

It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires. ~ Ruth Ozeki

I think that there is a problem with rewards and consequences because in the long run, they rarely work in the ways we hope. In fact, they are likely to backfire. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

Fine! He is being passive aggressive with me, and it's gonna backfire; I'm gonna be active friendly. ~ Natalya Vorobyova

A high self-esteem can quickly deteriorate into egotism, arrogance, and an over-confidence that can backfire and turn people off. ~ Susan C. Young

The backfire, my dear boy, of exiling the cleverest criminals of the nation to one place and requiring them to use their ingenuity is that they will
and you can't control what they do with it. ~ Sam Starbuck

The dating world makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. You put yourself out there earnestly as available only to encounter some of the most disingenuous people. There seems to be no formula. Just a boat load of anxiety. Did I do this right? Will he call? If I just say I like him, will it backfire because he will know he doesn't have to earn my time and attention anymore? How do people do this......Seriously.....how? ~ Alafia Stewart

It's sort of the mixed blessing of being on television for so long in one thing; sometimes that backfires, in that you're not able to continue on. ~ Katey Sagal

But I'm terrified of giving up my career only to have the whole thing backfire in my face. What if I move down there and it doesn't work out?"
"What if you don't and you never know what might have been? Can you live with that? ~ Georgia Cates

If it's okay to enrich ourselves by denying foreigners the right to earn a living, why shouldn't we enrich ourselves by invading peaceful countries and seizing their assets? Most of us don't think that's a good idea, and not just because it might backfire. We don't think it's a good idea because we believe human beings have human rights, whatever their colour and wherever they live. Stealing assets is wrong, and so is stealing the right to earn a living, no matter where the victim was born. ~ Steven E. Landsburg

Observing and understanding the social media phenomenon is one thing-leveraging this trend for advertising purposes is quite another. While most companies recognize the value of social media advertising opportunities, not many have figured out how to execute these kinds of campaigns and the unique risks they entail because of the potential that a viral marketing effort can backfire and actually harm a brand. ~ Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought? ~ Margaret Thatcher

Let us not still our anger against indifference and inattention and let us not glitziness, superciliousness and mumbo jumbo slither into our thinking and our actions, if we don't want our conscience to be backfired on. ("Twilight of desire") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Sometimes you try to help people, and it backfires on you, and then they try to take advantage of you. ~ Bill Cosby

I think a strict vegetarian diet acts as a good cleansing program for people who come from a diet heavy in animal foods and processed foods. But for some people, when it goes on too long it seems to backfire. ~ Ann Louise Gittleman

By treating patients like customers, as nurse Amy Bozeman pointed out in a Scrubs magazine article, hospitals succumb to the ingrained cultural notion that the customer is always right. "Now we are told as nurses that our patients are customers, and that we need to provide excellent service so they will maintain loyalty to our hospitals," Bozeman wrote. "The patient is NOT always right. They just don't have the knowledge and training." Some hospitals have hired "customer service representatives," but empowering these nonmedical employees to pander to patients' whims can backfire. Comfort is not always the same thing as healthcare. As Bozeman suggested, when representatives give warm blankets to feverish patients or complimentary milk shakes to patients who are not supposed to eat, and nurses take them away, patients are not going to give high marks to the nurses. ~ Alexandra Robbins

This strategy, which was then used as the template for the rest of the European periphery, turning the majority of European states into what I jokingly refer to as Bailoutistan, was always going to backfire on the European economy. Tim Geithner and Jack Lew, his successor in the US Treasury Department, understood this well. They shared the concern that what started in Greece in 2010, with the combination of an absurd bailout and a hideous level of austerity, has put Europe into a position that undermines America's recovery and threatens the prospects of China, Latin America, even India and Africa. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

When you're winning games, everyone thinks everything the manager says and does is fantastic. Then it goes the other way, and those earlier criticisms of players can backfire. ~ Gary Lineker

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are. ~ Lionel Shriver

I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires ... ~ Nicole Holofcener

Considerable social science research has found that constant praise of children can backfire, because it so often consists of telling children how smart they are, not of praising children for the things they actually do. As a result, many children become protective of their image of being smart and are reluctant to take chances that might actually damage that image. ~ Charles Murray

You know that saying 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'? That's so true of positive psychology. Our latest research tells us that the pursuit of happiness is a delicate art. Certain approaches to seeking happiness are now known to backfire, whereas others are effective. ~ Barbara Fredrickson

There were times my mom and I butted heads - over my curfew, over something like that. Whenever we would hit these moments of emotional backfire, she would say, 'You just don't understand what it's like to be a mother ... I could never handle losing you.' I was like, 'OK, but just, like, chill out.' ~ Brie Larson

For the record, kid, Summoning a demon to kidnap her, not the best way to meet a woman. It usually backfires on you. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

One of my professors in college used to say As the wise man said, Do or do not, there is no try, but the advice columns generally say the opposite. If someone promises to try, and you're happy with that, don't push. It can backfire. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble asking for too much. ~ Jael McHenry

Getting close to a woman, no matter if it's real or not, can backfire. ~ Carolyn Brown

I never give anyone advice: it can backfire horribly. In the 1950s, Eric Morecambe told Ken Dodd to get his teeth fixed. But those teeth turned out to be one of Dodd's big selling points. ~ Paul Merton

Our intentions attract the elements and forces, the events, the situation, the circumstances and the relationships necessary to fulfill the intended outcome. We don't need to become involved in the details-in fact, trying too hard may backfire. Let the non-local intelligence synchronize the actions of the universe to fulfill your intentions for you. ~ Deepak Chopra

Mere instruction in morality is not sufficient to nurture the virtues. It might even backfire, especially when the presentation is heavily exhortative and the pupil's will is coerced. Instead a compelling vision of the goodness of goodness itself needs to be presented in a way that is attractive and stirs the imagination. ~ Vigen Guroian

Would I have fared better if I had stood my ground and stared down my pursuers? Could so-called self-preservation sometimes backfire and become the very cause of pain? ~ David Michie

Although they will miss his presence if he dies, his condition is too burdensome to require his continued presence. In such circumstances, what is selfish is the insistence that the prospective suicide remain alive, not that he seek his own demise. The argument about selfishness can backfire in another way. Just as it is sometimes the case that those who kill themselves have accorded insufficient weight to the interests of others, so it is sometimes the case that those who do not kill themselves make this error. Consistent with what I have already said, I do not think that the interests of others are decisive. Nevertheless, there are situations in which a person's interest in continued life is negligible, because he will die soon anyway, and the quality of his life is appalling. If seeing out his days, rather than taking his own life earlier, would spell financial ruin for his family (because of the costs of his medical care), then it may well be unduly selfish not to take one's own life. ~ David Benatar

If colorblindness seems to backfire, is there something that does help our children - and us - navigate the dangerous shoals of race? Yes: talking openly about racial differences and what they might mean. Psychological research shows that cognitive biases in social judgment "can be controlled only through subsequent, deliberate 'mental correction' that takes group status squarely into account. ~ Ian F. Haney-Lopez

Sometimes opinions should kept to ones self, but not in appropriate situations. Be the judge of the appropriate situation, and be prepared for backfire. Moral of the story; if everyone doesn't agree, then prepare for them to lash out in disagreement. ~ Liam McGrath

Yet like many other human traits that made sense in past ages but cause trouble in the modern age, the knowledge illusion has its downside. The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realise just how ignorant they are of what's going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map. People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming newsfeeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.
Providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel wrong views by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues such as Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we hold on to these views out of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don't like too many facts, and they certainly don't like to feel stupid. Don't be so sure that you can ~ Yuval Noah Harari

If you expose what it is that we're doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we're doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It's what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It's to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.
It's not going to work. I think it's starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can't be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we're certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they've been doing. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Not that incentives are always so easy to figure out. Different types of incentives - financial, social, moral, legal, and others - push people's buttons in different directions, in different magnitudes. An incentive that works beautifully in one setting may backfire in another. ~ Anonymous