You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side.

Attributed to Gladstone, the line expresses a Whiggish confidence in historical progress: entrenched interests may resist reform, but the long arc of events favors what is coming next. “You cannot fight against the future” frames change as structurally inevitable rather than merely desirable, while “Time is on our side” casts patience as a political resource—suggesting that persuasion, demographic shifts, and accumulating evidence will ultimately outlast obstruction. In Gladstonian terms, it implies that moral and constitutional reforms gain legitimacy as they become aligned with public conscience and the direction of history, making resistance not just wrong but futile.