Dean Acheson Quotes

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

It's nice sometimes to be the river rather than the rock.

If you act like the river, you ultimately flow past all the rocks along the way.

Perhaps nothing was ever “meant to be.” There was just life, and right now, and doing your best. Being a bit “bendy.

If you can't do what you want, do what you can.

Life is a helluva thing. You can see trouble coming and you can't do a damn thing to prevent it coming. You just got to sit and watch and wait.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

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.

Why not? That's a good reason for almost anything - a bit used perhaps, but still quite serviceable.

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

Live in the world you inhabit. Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them. Turn them to your advantage.

Don't push the river. Just go with it.

It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.

I've become more like water, I'm more relaxed and I'll say, "Okay, let's just completely change it and do it that way."

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you only need to distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting.

Be a river - not a reservoir.

If it is our destiny to be hit by the train, we will be hit by the train. The only thing we can change is how the train turns us into a hamburger.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

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

The river itself portrays humanity precisely, with its tortuous windings, its accumulation of driftwood, its unsuspected depths, and its crystalline shallows, singing in the Summer sun. Barriers may be built across its path, but they bring only power, as the conquering of an obstacle is always sure to do. Sometimes when the rocks and stone-clad hills loom large ahead, and eternity itself would be needed to carve a passage, there is an easy way around. The discovery of it makes the river sing with gladness and turns the murmurous deeps to living water, bright with ripples and foam.

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.

I learned the importance of being nonjudgmental, taking what happens and trying to make it work.That's something you should apply to life.

I just do the best I can under the circumstances.

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