Herodotus Quotes

Sophistication knows the score, but is powerless to change it.

The most bitter pain among men: to have much knowledge but little power.

That speaking the words, even if true, had little power to change the inevitable or even make him feel much better.

I'm not a fatalist; even if I were, what could I do about it?

I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate

The worst part a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

I know what you're saying, but I already told you all the truth and I, I don't what, I don't know what else to do. I just do the best I can and tell you the only thing I can, and that's what I already told you many times.

There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to see you, and you can't go home again.

Losing hurts me.

In the world we have entered there will be many things that we can do nothing about. We should accept this state of affairs and incidentally, be grateful for it.

The past is buried and I mourn it with greater pain than many among you, because no human power can awaken it when the Crown itself has scattered ashes upon the coffin.

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

We don't have control over many things. We're always grasping for it, but in reality, we don't have a lot of control.

Some things you can't control.

Swearing's my release. It's the one weapon I have to defend myself against destiny when it elects to strike without pity.

The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness. We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion.

It’s mentally exhausting, feeling bad about something you can do nothing about.

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, roll darkly down the torrent of his fate.

She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.

I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse -- borne away with every breath!

Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.

And no matter what, there's not one thing in this world *or* the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That's all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That's all. That's all that matters. It's all that matters because it's all that's possible.

Fate rules. You follow the steps and you plan and you work. Then fate slips in laughing and makes fools of us. Sometimes we can trick it or out guess it but most often its already written. For some its written in blood. That doesn't mean we stop, but it does mean we can't comfort ourselves with blame. It's easier to take the blame than to admit there was nothing you could do to stop whatever happened.

Sorrow only increased with knowledge.