James Russell Lowell Quotes

We have to accept the world as it is, not as we'd have it to be.

As you cannot do what you want, Want what you can do

I think we ought to take the world as it is and not as we would like to have it.

It doesn't matter if the water is cold or warm if you're going to have to wade through it anyway.

We have to achieve what we can, and if we haven't yet learned that we are not always going to get our way this could be frustrating.

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.

We must take the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.

It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

It's the way life is, I suppose. Whatever happens, you deal with it.

I don't believe in expending energy on something you can't do anything about. If there was some easy way of fixing things, I'd probably do it.

I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.

'I know this is going to end bad, but I'm going to pretend it's going to end good.' My life's philosophy.

I am willing ... when I cannot get all I wish, to take what I can get.

We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

Do the best that can be done and then . . . be resigned.

No one of intelligence resents the inevitable.

It is what it is. Isn't that how these things always go? They are what they are. We just get to cope.

It’s tempting to wish for the perfect boss, the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we’ve been dealt, and accessorize what we’ve got.

What can't be helped must be endured.

We had to play the hand we were dealt, all of us. Fighting the battles we could win.

To take the world as one finds it

if I can't get what I want - well, I'll want what I can get.

My view is rather than just rage at your impotence you find the best way of achieving as much as you can within whatever constraints there are. It's not the world I would have created but you do what you can within it.

Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live.