Beyond Our Control Quotes

#1. Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

John C. Maxwell

#2. There are forces of nature and circumstance that are beyond our control, let alone our understanding, and to insist on victory in the face of this, to accept nothing less, is just asking for a soul-pummeling. The simple truth is, not every fight can be won.

Elyn R. Saks

#3. The future is not completely beyond our control. It is the work of our own hands.

Robert Kennedy

#4. Sooner or later we've all got to confront the reality that we have got to come to understand who we are and what we're doing, and the extent to which we are guided or manipulated by forces that are beyond our control.

Ayad Akhtar

#5. I don't think that trauma is an illusion; there is no question in my mind that circumstances beyond our control can shape and define us. But ultimately, we make choices about letting ourselves be defined by our pasts.

Christina Baker Kline

#6. Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution.

David Richo

#7. It's not our job to make people like us if they don't want to. It's not our job to change people. That's beyond our control. But what you CAN control is how you respond to it.

Taylor Swift

#8. intrinsic motivation is the only motivation. Inspirational lightning bolts are external - they come from without and are beyond our control.

Kevin Ashton

#9. Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.

Epictetus

#10. 'The Magus,' usually described as a book for the young, is about learning that the world is a mysterious and limitless place, beyond our control, and all the more exciting - and daunting - because of it.

Sharon Bolton

#11. Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.

Sylvia Boorstein

#12. This, for Homer, is the tragedy of being human: to desire freedom, and be tortured by a sense of autonomy, and yet be imprisoned by forces beyond our control.

Kenan Malik

#13. I suddenly realized it's no coincidence the two middle letters of life are if. For every action we make, there is a reaction. The outcome often beyond our control, fragile and fraught with ruinous consequences. Like a soap bubble made real by a gentle breath only to be taken by it.

Michael Faudet

#14. Our job is to live as well and as long as we can, and to help others to do the same. What happens after that and how we are viewed by others is beyond our control.

Bill Clinton

#15. I think there's a collective consciousness around the world that there are things beyond our control that have the power to annihilate us, as a species, and it's all rather frightening.

Laurie Holden

#16. [Liberals] think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

Ann Coulter

#17. Spirituality points, always, beyond: beyond the ordinary, beyond possession, beyond the narrow confines of the self, and - above all - beyond expectations. Because "the spiritual" is beyond our control, it is never exactly what we expect.

Ernest Kurtz

#18. Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

#19. There can be no doubt ... of our dependence upon forces beyond our control. Primitive man was so impotent in the face of these forces that g , especially in an unfavorable natural environment, fear became a dominant attitude, and, as the old saying goes, fear created gods.

John Dewey

#20. I know that some things are beyond our control, some illnesses are beyond our control, we get sick, we don't know why. But let's pledge to do whatever we can to avoid those high medical bills.

Don Lemon

#21. My theory is that hope is a form of madness. A benevolent one, sure, but madness all the same. Like an irrational superstition
broken mirrors and so forth
hope's not based on any kind of logic, it's just unfettered optimism, grounded in nothing but faith in things beyond our control.

Benjamin Wood

#22. The nature of the global business environment guarantees that no matter how hard we work to create a stable and healthy organisation, our organisation will continue to experience dramatic changes far beyond our control.

Margaret J. Wheatley

#23. It is impossible to say why we love something or someone. We can come up with reasons if we have to, but the important part happens in the dark, beyond our control. We just know when it is there. And when it goes away.

John Ajvide Lindqvist

#24. It means you never know what's going to happen,' I said. 'You do your best, then take your chances. Everything else is beyond our control.

Dick Van Dyke

#25. There's no "should" or "should not" when it comes to having feelings. They're part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings.

Fred Rogers

#26. I like to think that we're not defined by what happens to us ... because so many times they're beyond our control. I like to think that we're defined by our choices and our decisions.

Elizabeth Smart

#27. I really want people to understand that nobody is perfect and that things happen in life beyond our control.

Lil' Kim

#28. I think it would be prudent to advise you that due to extraordinary circumstances beyond our control, the original plan we had for participating in and extending the duration of the IPT Main Event has been drastically altered, specifically as it pertains to certain individuals competing -

Elle Lothlorien

#29. To focus on matters beyond our control is to misdirect energy, waste time, and doom us to frustration and failure.

Harvey Dorfman

#30. Things exist because we observe them; because something beyond our control created them. Absolute Knowledge is infinity. It's an impossible concept to comprehend, let alone achieve without an infinite amount of time.

Drew Cordell

#31. Too often, I've seen instances where we have an idea of what we want to be, where we want to go, and with whom - before life steps in the way, throws something at us that is beyond our control, and changes everything.

Barbara Delinsky

#32. There is a lot of basketball beyond our control, but a player should never let anyone try harder than he does

Dean Smith

#33. The attractions of ceramics lie partly in its contradictions. It is both difficult and easy, with an element beyond our control. It is both extremely fragile and durable. Like 'Sumi' ink painting, it does not lend itself to erasures and indecision.

Isamu Noguchi

#34. We live in a world that seems increasingly beyond our control. Our livelihoods are at the whim of globalized forces. The problems that we face - economic, environmental, and so on - cannot be solved by our individual actions.

Robert Greene

#35. Essentially, he taught that it doesn't make sense to upset ourselves about what is beyond our control. We don't get a choice about what hand we are dealt in this life. The only choice we have is our attitude about the cards we hold and the finesse with which we play our hand.

Sylvia Boorstein

#36. We live in a world that is beyond our control, and life is in a constant flux of change. So we have a decision to make: keep trying to control a storm that is not going to go away or start learning how to live within the rain.

Glenn Pemberton

#37. So what exactly are the rewards of resentment. It is always a relief to know that the reason we have failed in life is not because we lack the talent, energy, or determination to succeed, but because of a factor that is beyond our control and that has loaded the dice decisively against us.

Theodore Dalrymple

#38. we will always be at the mercy of the world and of circumstances beyond our control.

Chaya Rao

#39. Life & Death are beyond our control. We can't control where, how, or when we are born & we can't control where, how, or when we may die. Then why Worry about it. -RVM

R.v.m.

#40. God knows greed won't vanish. Neither will hatred or chauvanism. Human nature is a stubborn thing. But it isn't beyond control. Even if our core impulses can;t be banished, they can be tempered and redirected.

Robert Wright

#41. To admit regret is to understand that we are fallible - that there are powers beyond us. To admit regret is to lose control not only of a difficult past but of the very story we tell about our present. To admit sincere and abiding regret is one of our greatest but unspoken contemporary sins.

David Whyte

#42. I don't think we get exempt from the pain because we live good lives. Some circumstances we can't control - in fact, most are truly beyond our abilities. Instead maybe it's how we get made new; it's one of the only times we slow down enough to listen and receive grace, real grace.

Katherine Reay

#43. The development of fast film allowed the subjects of our photographs to be caught unawares, beyond our or their control. But they are nevertheless caught; the camera holds the last lanyard of control we would forgo.

Stanley Cavell

#44. I felt heat and
my body trembled
and forces
beyond my control
pulled me to him
as the music ripped
through our bodies

Lisa Schroeder

#45. Oftentimes, the whole reason we became programmers in the first place is because we wanted to move beyond being a mere player and change the game, control it, modify its parameters, maybe even create our own games.

Jeff Atwood

#46. There are few colonial nations anymore. Instead, we are colonized by financial institutions beyond our political control. We are colonized with pens and papers and millions of little digital bursts transferring billions of dollars all over the globe in the blink of an eye.

Charlie Pierce

#47. We were born in charge of our own being, our own personality. Other people's personalities are beyond our
control.

Franz Bardon

#48. We can control a function of x, f(x), even if x remains vastly beyond our understanding.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#49. One of the essential differences between the liberal and conservative worldview is that the liberals believe in rationality, whereas conservative believe that human events are ordered by forces that are beyond the ability of our rational mind to understand or control.

Thom Hartmann

#50. Prohibition ... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes ... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Abraham Lincoln

#51. I believe politics is a team sport. That, for awful and unfortunate reasons beyond any of our control, the American system only allows, effectively, for two teams.

Rick Perlstein

#52. Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.

Henri Nouwen

#53. Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.

Benjamin Disraeli