Swim Or Sink Quotes & Sayings

But 'why then publish?' There are no rewards
Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.
I ask in turn why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery,
And what I write I cast upon the stream
To swim or sink. I have had at least my dream. — George Gordon Byron

I have insecurities about being a good mom, or balancing my career with motherhood. All of those are very strong, very real obstacles. My motto is just unconsciously, and maybe now consciously because I'm saying it, is sink or swim. I'm a fighter. — Charisma Carpenter

WHEN YOU WORK FOR OTHERS, YOU ARE AT THEIR MERCY. THEY OWN YOUR WORK; THEY OWN YOU. YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT IS SQUASHED. WHAT KEEPS YOU IN SUCH POSITIONS IS A FEAR OF HAVING TO SINK OR SWIM ON YOUR OWN. INSTEAD YOU SHOULD HAVE A GREATER FEAR OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU REMAIN DEPENDENT ON OTHERS FOR POWER. YOUR GOAL IN EVERY MANEUVER IN LIFE MUST BE OWNERSHIP, WORKING THE CORNER FOR YOURSELF. WHEN IT IS YOURS TO LOSE-YOU ARE MORE MOTIVATED, MORE CREATIVE, MORE ALIVE. THE ULTIMATE POWER IN LIFE IS TO BE COMPLETELY SELF-RELIANT, COMPLETELY YOURSELF. — 50 Cent

Born on an island, I could swim before I could walk, thrown many times into swimming pools and warm transparent Caribbean waters: sink or swim, that was my first lesson. While I'm not a natural athlete, I'm still a strong swimmer and feel a great affinity with the sea. — Monique Roffey

We just need to figure out how to navigate the rest of the world, and we'll either sink or swim. I'm a really good swimmer. The question is, how long can you hold your breath? — Melissa Foster

Mr. Adams, describing a conversation with Jonathan Sewall in 1774, says: "I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination." — John Adams

I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer. — Daniel Woodrell

After the war, they took Army dogs and rehabilitated them for civilian life. But they turned soldiers into civilians immediately, and let em sink or swim. — Audie Murphy

SINK OR SWIM ALERT
Folks with low self-esteem will push you under to save their drowning egos
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

I've always believed that if you cannot do it, then you should not do it.Only when it comes to the point where you've literally dug yourself into a hole, where it's sink or swim, is that viable to me. — El-P

They don't tell you how to be on TV - they put the camera on you, and they turn it on, and you sink or swim. — Michael Strahan

In this business you either sink or swim or you don't. — David Smith

The worst thing we could do is impose time limits and then expect people to sink or swim once they move off welfare. — William Julius Wilson

There comes a time when you swim or sink so I jumped in the drink 'cause I couldn't make myself clear. Maybe I wrote in invisible ink, oh I've tried to think how I could've made it appear. — Aimee Mann

We are born into our World, educated to adjust to it according to the dominant and accepted norms and pretty much left to sink or swim! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim. It was like an execution. — Kurt Vonnegut

'You are no saint,' says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, I go to Him; other hope, I have none. — Charles Spurgeon

There had been trials involving water, a time when witches were persecuted, bound, and tossed into the largest nearby body of water to see if they would sink or swim. — Kayla Krantz

Change will force you to step off the path, to venture from the nest, to close your eyes and dive right in, knowing that the greatest opportunities in life are found in the sink or swim, do or die moments. — Stella Payton

As marriage was woman's business, unmarried women, though doubtless unfortunate, must simply be considered as business failures: harsh, doubtless, but in tune with the sink-or-swim capitalist times. — Ruth Brandon

This is an epiphany moment, I can either sink or swim — Jamie Scallion

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim. — James A. Garfield

Nothing will serve you better than a strong work ethic. Nothing. And it's something that you can't teach. You have to be thrown into it, where you're going to sink or swim. It's amazing how self-correcting and how clarifying a good, hard, shitty job can be. Because at the end of the day, any profession I've seen anybody in, when you peer behind the curtains of Oh, wouldn't that be a great job? Wow, what an amazing thing, a philanthropic endeavor! it really just comes down to It's a f**king grind. — Robert Downey Jr.

It was sink or swim for him - and happens he's swimming. — Esther Forbes

The traditional gross anatomy lab represented a sort of sink-or-swim mentality about dealing with death. To cope with what was being asked of them, medical students had to find ways to desensitize themselves. They quickly learned to objectify cadavers, to think of the dead as structures and tissues, and not a former human being. Humor--at the cadaver's expense--was tolerated, condoned even. — Mary Roach

Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river
and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you. — Alysha Speer

Live or die, sink or swim. — George Peele

Why should your Majesty expect it? My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia. — C.S. Lewis

How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] ... Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals. — Clifford A. Truesdell

Strike the words "white male" from all your constitutions, and then, with fair sailing, let us sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish together. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

All things and all people in life have to sink or swim on their own merits, not their reputation; that just as a wise man can say a foolish thing, a fool can say something wise. — Vincent Bugliosi

Sail, sail thy best, ship of democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the present only,
The past is also stored in thee,
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the western continent alone,
Earth's resume entire floats upon thy keel, O ship, is steadied by thy spars,
With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee,
With all their ancient struggles , martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents,
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant.. — Walt Whitman

Whatever our struggles,and whether we sink or swim,our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean — Arthur Golden

We awake at dawn.
To sink or swim. — Kiera Woodhull

I love improvisation. You can't blame it on the writers. You can't blame it on direction. You can't blame it on the camera guy ... It's you. You're on. You've got to do it, and you either sink or swim with what you've got. — Jonathan Winters

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DIGNITY AND CHOICE

By the One who set the earth with rivers pouring through in mist below the mountains, and two oceans with a strip of land between (27:61), we move the elements into various shapes without their consent, but human beings, unlike the water and trees, have a choice. They are given dignity, discernment, and the evolutionary wisdom that can move from death to new life, again to die and be restored on another level of existence. You have many choices about the ways you live and work and change and survive. Say you fall into an ocean. You may give up and sink, or you may try to swim to shore. Salvation is your decision. — Bahauddin

I think it's really hard to say now what makes a show kind of sink or swim, and what creates longevity. For instance, I think that Survivor is a very well produced show. It's very simple, it's very elemental, and I think it gets into big issues. I think American Idol has been an amazing show for many, many seasons. — Dan Cutforth

In our world, you sink or swim, and there are no excuses. — Paul Graham

In the concrete jungle it's sink or swim: you can't be timid or tentative; you have to forge through, make your mark, enter the fray. — Belinda Jones

Sink or swim! You never really feel ready, there is always sometime more that your mind tells you you should be doing. However, the trick is to be able to show up and perform no matter what the circumstance. — Natalie Cook

I decided to try things, and I started to do things that would take me out of my comfort zone, and a lot of the times, that will cause you to either sink or swim. Really, I just lean on my inner circle and my faith to try to continue to encourage me so that I'm never out. I can be down, but I'm never out. — Omar Benson Miller

Mature citizens have to sink or swim by themselves. Citizens are on their own and have to prove their responsibility and self-reliance. They have become the leaders in their own family units (or local communities). They have to, and are competent to, make their own decisions. They have to protect themselves and their families (or communities). They know what is good for them better than their government, which is distant from them. A good government does not meddle or interfere in their lives. Any governmental meddling or interfering is strongly resented. Here — George Lakoff

I was actually drowning in a pool full of people and I knew how to swim. I wondered how long it would take someone to realize there was a dead body in the pool. Would I sink or bounce on the surface like a floating chlorinator? — Ashlan Thomas

I think there is more creative freedom as a solo artist by far because you might get a group push back on an idea because it's more of a democratic process. You can sink or swim on your own ideas on a solo project. — Myka 9

Pickpocket is a sink-or-swim profession, not something that can be taught in the comfort of your living room. — Martyn V. Halm

What do you mean? Why do you think you like them? That's all you and I did together when you were little. Don't you remember? I. Don't. Remember. I remember, It's a sink-or-swim world, Noah. I remember, Act tough and you are tough. I remember every heart-stomping look of disappointment, of embarrassment, of bewilderment from him. I remember: If your twin sister wasn't my spitting image I'd swear you came about from parthenogenesis. I remember the 49ers, the Miami Heat, the Giants, the World Cup. I do not remember Animal Planet. — Jandy Nelson

No matter what grief or loss takes place, most of life flows on all around us, as though nothing's changed. At some point in our sorrow, we each make a choice to sink or swim. There's no alternative. — Tammara Webber

Tucker was my safe place for three years, my secure dock in a sea of indecision as I dealt with my father's illness and death. And now I had to sink or swim. It was time to let go ... and move on. Slowly, I pushed off from the dock that was Tucker Montgomery and prepared to swim ... praying I wouldn't drown. — Melissa Brown

Financial institutions are not being bailed out as a favor to them or their stockholders. In fact, stockholders have come out worse off after some bailouts. The real point is to avoid a major contraction of credit that could cause major downturns in output and employment, ruining millions of people, far beyond the financial institutions involved. If it was just a question of the financial institutions themselves, they could be left to sink or swim. But it is not. — Thomas Sowell

The rules of this house are written in water. I must either sink or swim. — Jessie Burton

I was afraid of Korean food when I moved to L.A., let alone sushi. I remember thinking either sink or swim. Living here in Studio City, Ventura Blvd. is the Mecca of sushi restaurants. What you thought was so exotic is just run of the mill. — Parvesh Cheena

Knowing how to swim doesn't come from someone else showing you or someone else telling you or watching movies of other people swimming. It comes from having been in the water, knowing how to move yourself through the water and not sink. And it's true of virtually everything in our lives: knowing comes from direct experience. — Wayne Dyer

Life is All About How you Handle Plan B
Plan A is always my first choice.
You know, the one where
Everything works out to be
Happily ever-after.
But more often than not,
I find myself dealing with
The upside-down, inside-out version
Where nothing goes as it should.
It's at this point that the real
Test of my character comes in..
Do I sink, or do I swim?
Do I wallow in self pity and play the victim,
Or simply shift gears
And make the best of the situation?
The choice is all mine ...
Life is all about how you handle Plan B. — Suzy Toronto

It was such a dramatic escalator that I was on. It was at 90 degrees. I was going straight up like a rocket ship into space. And I was thrown in with the sharks. They said sink or swim in this Cup deal. — Kurt Busch

I always thought that I was a good swimmer, you know? That in a sink or swim situation I would rise to the top. But the truth is I was drowning. I was sinking fast and you threw me a lifeline. I never expected to love you. But you saved my life. How could I not? — Rachel Hayes

CUP AND OCEAN
These forms we seem to be are cups floating in an ocean of living consciousness.
They fill and sink without leaving an arc of bubbles or any good-bye spray. What we
are is that ocean, too near to see, though we swim in it and drink it in. Don't
be a cup with a dry rim, or someone who rides all night and never knows the horse
beneath his thighs, the surging that carries him along. — Rumi

When you have to cope with a lot of problems, you're either going to sink or you're going to swim. — Tom Cruise

I think it gave us the freedom to be more creative and do things the way we wanted to do them, so if a label liked it that was cool and if they didn't like it fine. Ultimately it was up to us to sink or swim and there was nobody telling us what direction to go in. I think that made the entire record more diverse. — Jason C. Miller

We can write morals into law, and enforce those morals harshly, or we can return to a true Free Enterprise System, which has the sink-or-swim justice of Caesar Augustus built into it. I emphatically favor the latter alternative. We must be hard, for we must become again a nation of swimmers, with the sinkers quietly disposing of themselves. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise. — C.S. Lewis

Once they arrive, affirmative action kids are generally left to sink or swim academically. Brown (University) offers plenty of counseling and tutoring to struggling students, but, as any academic Dean will tell you, it's up to the students to seek it out, something that a drowning minority student will seek to avoid at all costs, fearing it will trumpet a second-class status. — Ron Suskind

The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division. — Benjamin Cardozo

You had no place of your own in the world of adults. It was sink or swim for you - you couldn't help but be strong because your whole world was precarious. I've always felt your underlying fragility. I loved your fragility when you weren't afraid to let it show. — Andre Gorz

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave ... walking the plank ... willingly ... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful. — Morrissey

Life in our world is very sink or swim, and that's for the best. If you can't survive in the deep end, you should get out before you drown. — Seanan McGuire

It's always nerve-wracking when you're hosting 'Saturday Night Live.' You either sink or swim. — Christina Aguilera