I found a saying I like. And I found a variant on it I also like. But there is something disturbing about it: it is from a certain “Yuri Orlov”. I found out that this Orlov is the main character in ‘Lord of War’, a 2005 American film - I saw it, a really tough one about a man who deals with arms. The problem is that there is a famous real Yuri Orlov too, a scientist who received several prizes for fighting for human rights. It’s not clear why the filmmakers used his name…

人生有两种悲剧，一种是得不到你想要的，另一种是得到。

There are two types of tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.

And the variant:

糊口中有两个悲剧：一个是得不到想要的，另一个是获得了不想要的。

There are two tragedies in a meager life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting what you don’t want.

悲剧 (bei1ju4) - tragedy

糊口 (hu2kou3 ) - it is translated as “hand-to-mouth”, to make a living (only enough) to feed the family

获得 (huo4de2) - to acquire, to obtain, to get, to achieve

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