We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind, or choices. We cannot control the outcome of events. We cannot control life. Some of us can barely control ourselves.

You cannot convince people to love you.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

You can’t go from people to nonpeople.

You may not be able to control other people . . . but you can control how you react to them and their actions. This is an easy thing to say but much more difficult to do.

...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.

The sad thing about true stupidity is that you can do absolutely nothing about it.

It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing.

You cannot save people. You can only love them.

That's sad too, people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today

Nobody tells you what you can and can't do.

Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it.

You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.

You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something — and you can’t. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little — not a thing in the world — not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination.