George Orwell Quotes

man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer

Change is inevitable, and you can't stop that change. You say, 'Wait, stop,' and it just drives right over you.

What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.

We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

You don't paddle against the current, you paddle with it. And if you get good at it, you throw away the oars.

I think you have to relax about aging. What else can you do?

I've found in my own life, if you try to struggle against what the universe is telling you, you set yourself up for more of a battle.

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

All change is bad. But sometimes it has to be done.

Life? You can't manipulate it or bend it to your will. You have no choice but to roll with it.

Things change. I used to have a real resistance to it and hold on to things, but let things happen and go with it, and you will actually go through it, and it's a lot less stressful.

Surrender is working with what happens.

There are things that are not in your control and you will never be able to control them. You've got to accept that very quickly.

Life is a mystery: you've just got to go with it.

Everything happens just like it's supposed to happen; you've just got to roll with it and keep moving forward.

Arguing with reality it like trying to teach a cat to bark.

Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. We don't know how to let go. We're like a Jack-in-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we struggle the harder it is to get back in the box.

Resist as much as thou wilt; heaven's ways are heaven's ways.

After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was.

The stream of passing years is like a river with people being carried along in the current. Some are swept along, protesting, fighting all the way, trying to swim back up the stream, longing for the shores that they have passed, clutching at anything to retard their progress, frightened by the onward rush of the strong current and in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters. Others go with the current freely, trusting themselves to the buoyancy of the water.

so, the whole idea, you see, is that everything's falling apart, so don't try and stop it. when you're falling off a precipice, it doesn't do you any good to hang onto a rock that's falling with you. see? but everything is doing that. and so, again, this is another case of our completely wasting our energy in trying to prevent the world from falling apart. don't do it. and then you'll be able to do something interesting with the free energy.

What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide.

The Fates guide those who go willingly. Those who do not, they drag.

But I must bear my destiny as best I can, knowing well that there is no resisting the strength of necessity.