Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
 Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952). copy citation

Context

“"I wish I had a stone for the knife," the old man said after he had checked the lashing on the oar butt. "I should have brought a stone." You should have brought many things, he thought. But you did not bring them, old man. Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
"You give me much good counsel," he said aloud. "I'm tired of it."
He held the tiller under his arm and soaked both his hands in the water as the skiff drove forward.
"God knows how much that last one took," he said.” source

Meaning and analysis

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