This quotation's origin is actually unknown, however it is not found in the Dao De Jing.
生命是一连串的自发的自然变化。逆流而动只会徒增伤悲。接受现实,万物自然循着规律发展。
Misattributed
Variant: Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them — that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
“The only way was forward, whatever lay at the end.”
Source: New Spring
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Robert Jordan 305
American writer 1948–2007Related quotes
“Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Komarr (1998), Chapter 16 (p. 268)
“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”
“Once you have started, the only way back is to go forward.”
Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 91.
Context: There was truth in Diaz’s logic, yes: our line of work is like that. Once you have started, the only way back is to go forward.
1900s
Context: The Colonies are prepared to meet us. In return for a very moderate preference they will give us a substantial advantage. They will give us, in the first place— I believe they will reserve to us the trade which we already enjoy. They will arrange for tariffs in the future in order not to start industries in competition with those which are already in existence in the mother country... But they will do a great deal more for you. This is certain. Not only will they enable you to retain the trade which you have, but they are ready to give you preference to all the trade which is now done with them by foreign competitors... We must either draw closer together or we shall drift apart... It is, I believe, absolutely impossible for you to maintain in the long run your present loose and indefinable relations and preserve these Colonies parts of the Empire... Can we invent a tie which must be a practical one, which will prevent separation... I say that it is only by commercial union, reciprocal preference, that you can lay the foundations of the confederation of the Empire to which we all look forward as a brilliant possibility.
Speech in Glasgow (6 October 1903), quoted in The Times (7 October 1903), p. 4.
“When your back is against the wall, there's only one way to go and that's forward.”
On Rajiv Gandhi, reported in Steven R. Weisman, "India a Year Later: Gandhi Leaving His Mark", The New York Times (October 30, 1985), A-1.
“Whatever way uncertainty is approached, probability is the only sound way to think about it.”
5. The Rules of Probability. p. 71.
Understanding Uncertainty (2006)
Time’s Rub, p. 261
In Alien Flesh (1986)
Source: Angels, Demons, & Gods of the New Millennium (1997), Chapter 4