The accident of an accident.

 

The accident of an accident.
--
Speech in Reply to the Duke of Grafton. Recounted in Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 142.

 

Edward Thurlow

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Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. It baffles and disgusts. It may even horrify. Once the new habit has been acquired, the accident ceases to be an accident. It becomes classical and loses its shock value.

 

Jean Cocteau

 

It's not going to interfere with the film. I heal miraculously. I've been in an auto accident and another fire. They thought I'd need plastic surgery, but I haven't a scar...No, I don't think I'm accident prone, but it's strange.

 

Edie Sedgwick

 

Some people say accident, it may be an accident, it may be something else. The (helicopter) was very well equipped, this was my (helicopter) the one I am flying all the time, I am not ruling anything out. Either the pilot panicked... either there was some side wind or the instruments failed or there was an external factor.

 

Yoweri Museveni

 

With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don’t use – I don’t use the accident – ‘cause I deny the accident... it’s quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I’m about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it’s direct.

 

Jackson Pollock

 

And mothers are always more interested in the condition of your underwear than your body if you're ever in an accident. And they tell you that, "I hope for my sake that if you're ever in an accident, you have on clean underwear!" Well, I thought that was what an accident was! Look, you're driving a truck. Here comes another truck, gonna hit you. Now, whether you hit the truck or not, you're going to have soiled underwear! Because first you say it, then you do it! Now here comes your mother to the hospital. "Did he have on clean underwear?" "Yes, we found it in the glove compartment."

 

Bill Cosby

 

Gould's arguments on the quirkiness of human intelligence are not only presented as part of an evolutionary argument, but also I believe to buttress an ideological viewpoint. In brief, his assessment of Man as an evolutionary accident is to lead us into a libertarian attitude whereby, by virtue of a cosmic accident, we, and we alone, have no choice but to take responsibility for our own destiny and mould it to our desire.

 

Simon Conway Morris