it's a long road that has no turning

English

Proverb

it's a long road that has no turning

1. Progress through life is characterized by change.
   • 1936, New Zealand Parliament, Parliamentary Debates. House of Representatives:

     It is a long road that has no turning ; and the road the Labour Government is travelling will have a turning, too. Like every new Government, it is making changes; but the present Administration is making a welter of it.

   • 1998, David Henry Burton, Taft, Holmes, and the 1920s Court: An Appraisal, →ISBN, page 67:

     The next two decades were a political education for Taft as he moved from civil governor of the Philippine Islands to Secretary of War, President of the United States, Kent Professor at Yale and co-chairman of the National War Labor Board. It is a long road that has no turning though.

   • 2014, S.K. Carnes, The Way Back: A Soldier's Journey, →ISBN:

     “It's a long road that has no turning, and so Lena and I have rounded the corner. We have a healthy baby girl.

2. The current situation is bound to change eventually.
   • 1834, John Mackay Wilson, Wilson's Historical, traditionary, and imaginative tales of the Borders:

     He was of a wild and restless disposition in those days, and his acquaintances were wont to call him by the name of Jack the Rambler. But it is a long road that has no turning,—he had now been many years at sea,—was the captain of a free trader, and as remarkable for his steadiness and worldly wisdom as he had been noted for wildness in his youth.

   • 1926, United States Congress Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, National forests and the public domain, page 2960:

     He never has had any rights. Whenever anyone wanted anything the stockman was using he simply took it, and the Federal Government stood behind him to back him up. But it is a long road that has no turning, and it is a long dog that has no tail. The stockman's day has arrived if he only has the gumption to see it and to take advantage of it.

   • 2004, Frederick T. Wilson, James R. Reckner, A Sailor's Log, →ISBN:

     Well, it's a long road that has no turning. Something has got to drop some o' these days. Anyhow, we'll have to stick it out as best we can. It will come all right in a hundred years or so, and our present enlistments can't last forever.

   • 2015, R. Austin Freeman, A Silent Witness, →ISBN:

     I was rather startled at the sudden despondency of her tone. Apparently the road that Mrs. Samway trod was not strewn with roses. "Still," I said," it is a long road that has no turning." "It is," she agreed, bitterly, "but many have to travel such a road, to find the turning at last barred by the churchyard gate."