1. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to change a situation that cannot be changed. The bureaucracy is too big to fight. You’ll just be tilting at windmills
2. I’ve always been one to try to help the helpless, even when I know I have little chance of success fighting against the powerful. I guess I’ll always tilt at windmills

The expression originates from Miguel de Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote , in which Quixote comes upon several windmills and, thinking that they are giants, tries to defeat them in battle by tilting at them (stabbing while running or riding past) with his lance (long spear).