We cannot direct the wind, but...

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

wind

Background photo by Christina Ambalavanar on Unsplash

Translation

(French, German)

Nous ne pouvons pas diriger le vent, mais nous pouvons ajuster les voiles.

Wir können den Wind nicht ändern, aber die Segel anders setzen.

See also...

Fate shuffles the cards and we play.

Arthur Schopenhauer - Parerga and Paralipomena

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Since I grew tired of the chase
And search, I learned to find;
And since the wind blows in my face,
I sail with every wind.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The Joyful Science

Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

Epictetus - Handbook (Enchiridion)

We don't choose the things that happen to us, but we can choose how we react to them.

Paulo Coelho - Hippie

A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

Not to extinguish our free-will, I hold it to be true that fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince

Destiny beats the cards but we will play them.

Bernard Moitessier

Quotes for: wind

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

François de La Rochefoucauld /

The dunes change with the wind, but the desert remains the same.

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist /

The wind is rising!... We must try to live!

Paul Valéry /

Beware of spitting against the wind!

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra /

wind

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire /

wind

Anger is the wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

Robert Green Ingersoll /

All wind quotes...

also said...

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

You cannot hold the day back, but you can avoid wasting it.

Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 /

Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good.

- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 /

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

More quotes...

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