Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Inanimate objects drift with currents, while living beings have the will to resist them.
In plain terms
Dead things float with the current, but living things can swim against it.
What can you take from it?
Life requires active resistance to natural flow.

Where it applies

  • motivation
  • resisting trends
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • choose resistance
  • exert will
  • defy current

Questions to consider

  • Are you going with the flow?
  • What do you resist?

Another view

Sometimes resistance leads to exhaustion or failure.

More from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  1. Men are moved most by their religion; especially when it is irreligion.

    Permalink to quote #161
  2. Other ages have seen the day conquer the candle-light and then the candle-light conquer the day. Again and again, before our time, men have grown content with …

    Permalink to quote #163
  3. Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of…

    Permalink to quote #160

Related quotes

  1. Live, and so confound our enemies.

    Lois McMaster BujoldLois McMaster Bujold quote #18
  2. Just because you're a fatalist doesn't mean I want to die.

    Orson Scott CardOrson Scott Card quote #337
  3. It was close; but that's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.

    Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur quote #1