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Impossible Quotes

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Impossible Quotes

“All too often we say of a man doing a good job that he is indispensable. A flattering canard, as so many disillusioned and retired and fired have discovered when the world seems to keep on turning without them. In business, a man can come nearest to indispensability by being dispensable in his current job. How can a man move up to new responsibilities if he is the only one able to handle his present tasks? It matters not how small or large the job you now have, if you have trained no one to do it as well, you're not available; you've made your promotion difficult if not impossible.”

IfsMenWorldWellsMadeMatterSeemsAbleJobsMovingDifficultResponsibilityImpossibleTasksCurrentsAvailableHandleIndispensableGood JobPromotionRetiredFlatteringDisillusionedDispensable
Author:Malcolm Forbes
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“The want of an international Copy-Right Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the wayof remuneration for literary labor, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews.”

WantLawLiteratureImpossibleEffectsLaborInternationalMagazinesCopiesReviewsRenderingBooksellersRemuneration
Book:Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories
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“Then the question began to live under my blankets: How did lesbianism begin? What were the symptoms? The public library gave information on the finished lesbian--and that woefully sketchy--but on the growth of a lesbian, there was nothing. I did discover that the difference between hermaphrodites and lesbians was that hermaphrodites were "born that way." It was impossible to determine whether lesbians budded gradually, or burst into being with a suddenness that dismayed them as much as it repelled society.”

WayGrowthBornDifferencesImpossibleInformationLibraryDetermineFinishedSymptomsBlanketPublic LibraryDismayedLesbianismSketchyHermaphrodites
Author:Maya Angelou
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“There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.”

MenWayShouldWritingTryingArtHardWould BeLawArtistWifeImpossiblePoetJudgingAmountOrdinaryTreatsHarmFoolishNewspapersIncomePainterInstanceColourStatuesSculptorsTrying HardOverestimateNeckties
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.”

LooksLastsFacesCultureNextDifficultImpossibleGenerationsDifficultyAimLaysAriseCoatsJamaicaSpecificationsAfrican Culture
Book:I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader
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“What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.”

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Author:Elizabeth Bowen
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“Some dreams truly are 'impossible dreams.' However, many aren't. Knowing the difference is often one of the first steps to finding your element, because if you can see the chances of making a dream come true, you can also likely see the necessary next steps you need to take toward achieving it.”

IfsNeedsFirstsDreamMotivationalPassionNextDifferencesChanceStepsKnowingImpossibleAchieveElementsAchievementFindingsFirst StepsDreams Come TrueNext StepsTrue YouImpossible Dream
Book:The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
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“It has often been argued that absolute scepticism is self-contradictory; but this is a mistake: and even if it were not so, it would be no argument against the absolute sceptic, inasmuch as he does not admit that no contradictory propositions are true. Indeed, it would be impossible to move such a man, for his scepticism consists in considering every argument and never deciding upon its validity; he would, therefore, act in this way in reference to the arguments brought against him.”

IfsMenWayDoeSelfWould BeMovingMistakeImpossibleArgumentAbsolutesSkepticismConsideringPropositionsContradictoryValidityScepticismSceptic
Book:The Essential Peirce, Volume 1: Selected Philosophical Writings? (1867–1893)
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“The percept is the reality. It is not in propositional form. But the most immediate judgment concerning it is abstract. It is therefore essentially unlike the reality, although it must be accepted as true to that reality. Its truth consists in the fact that it is impossible to correct it, and in the fact that it only professes to consider one aspect of the percept.”

FactsRealityFormImpossibleJudgmentAspectAcceptedAbstract
Book:The collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: pragmatism and pragmaticism
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“The useless search of philosophers for a cause of the universe is a regressus in infinitum (a stepping backwards into the infinite) and resembles climbing up an endless ladder, the recurring question as to the cause of the cause rendering the attainment of a final goal impossible.”

UniverseCausesGoalImpossibleInfiniteFinalsPhilosopherEndlessUselessClimbingBackwardsLaddersAttainmentRenderingRecurringClimbing Up
Book:Force and Matter: Or, Principles of the Natural Order of the Universe. With a System of Morality Based Thereon
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“... women learned one important lesson--namely, that it is impossible for the best of men to understand women's feelings or the humiliation of their position. When they asked us to be silent on our question during the War, and labor for the emancipation of the slave, we did so, and gave five years to his emancipation and enfranchisement.... I was convinced, at the time, that it was the true policy. I am now equally sure that it was a blunder.”

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Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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“It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.”

IfsWayShouldDifferentProblemGovernmentLawCoursesViewsPrinciplesImpossibleBasesConstitutionMethodWork OutAriseAdministrationDifferent WaysReactionaries
Author:William Howard Taft
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“Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next. Between two and three there is a jump. In the case of quantity, there is no such jump; and because jump is missing in the world of quantity, it is impossible for any quantity to be exact. You can have exactly three tomatoes. You can never have exactly three gallons of water. Always quantity is approximate.”

WorldMeanTwoThreeNextWaterNumbersCasesImpossibleMissingProductsQuantityAccurateCountingMeasurementTomatoesGallonsDiscontinuityIntegers
Author:Gregory Bateson
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“It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.”

IfsShouldGovernmentWould BePainTogetherReligionChristChurchImpossibleOne ThingKingsSeparationCommandPriestsManifestRulersSovereignChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateSubordinatesDamnation
Book:The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: Part I, Human Nature, Part II, De Corpore Politico ; with Three Lives
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“It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.”

MenHumansMayReasonSeemsCertainBeliefHoursOpinionImpossibleHumourHe ManReflectionIntenseContradictionImperfectionSkepticismPersevereRenounceScepticismHuman Reason
Book:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
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“That this subject [of imaginary magnitudes] has hitherto been considered from the wrong point of view and surrounded by a mysterious obscurity, is to be attributed largely to an ill-adapted notation. If, for example, +1, -1, and the square root of -1 had been called direct, inverse and lateral units, instead of positive, negative and imaginary (or even impossible), such an obscurity would have been out of the question.”

IfsHas BeensViewsImpossibleSubjectsExampleNegativeDirectRootsIllPoint Of ViewMysteriousSquaresImaginaryUnitsObscurityMagnitudeAdaptedInverseSquare Roots
Author:Carl Friedrich Gauss
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“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”

NeedsKindIdeasSometimesMatterUseMightGrowsBusinessCitiesEconomySuccessfulImpossibleStreetsBuildingProveErrorsTrialsConstructionNew IdeasProfitableVigorousExperimentationOverheadOld IdeasOld Buildings
Author:Jane Jacobs
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“The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.”

WayWarMomentsFactsRealityCreativityCreativeImpossibleMilitaryGeniusVictoryMarkTransformationMethodWarfareTestedImprovisationMockDemonicRight Moment
Author:Stefan Zweig
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“The very act of representation has been so thoroughly challenged in recent years by postmodern theories that it is impossible not to see the flaws everywhere, in any practice of photography. Traditional genres in particular-journalism, documentary studies, and fine-art photography-have become shells, or forms emptied of meaning.”

YearsHas BeensArtFormPracticeStudyImpossibleParticularTheoryFinePhotographyTraditionalJournalismGenreFlawsShellsRepresentationDocumentariesFine ArtsPostmodernArt Photography
Author:Richard Misrach
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“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”

ShouldChristianLawReligiousImpossibleTeachingMankindCivilizationInstitutionsFoundersOur Founding FathersUs HistoryFounding Fathers ChristianUs Founding FathersRedeemerFounding Fathers ReligiousFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaChristian HeritageGod And Country
Author:David Josiah Brewer
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“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing--for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it's impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”

LifeI CanLife IsImpossibleGoes OnRoundsMetaphorFollowingDeterminedOpponentsBoxingBellsPropositionsLife Is LikeMatched
Book:On Boxing
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