Quotessence
Home / Topics / Impossible Quotes

Impossible Quotes

Browse 5414 quotes about Impossible.

Related topics

IfsPeopleThinkingMenWorldKnowsWayBelieveTryingWantSeemsShouldWould BeDifficultMindHumansMayFeelsMadeDreamGivingHas BeensNeedsLooksFirstsHardWritingDoneMeanPersonsKindIdeasFactsLongDoeLittlesTwoNothing Is ImpossibleSometimesRealYearsHeartMatterImpossible ThingsReasonWellsStatesProblemStillsArtInspirationalSaidEasyWholeHappensImpossibilityMomentsEnoughImagineEndsSelfWarLawCertainMightBookFoundPossibilityCountryChildrenTasksTodayBodyCoursesEyeFormAchieveDesireLifeCan DoBeliefRealityHandsPlayGovernmentShowsSoulUseCharacterChristianFeelingsI CanImportantLoveSituationFacesPoliticalHelpingOrderMovingmore

Impossible Quotes

“I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day.”

ThinkingMeanTwoHomeAbleNextImpossibleOppositesTwo ThingsNonsensePullingUnlimitedNext DayLooking ForwardConfrontingCambridgeGeneralities
Book:The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914
Create image

“The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, "One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door." The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act?" Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

ThinkingSaidTwoNextAsksMistakeMoralImpossibleGenerationsDoorsRight NowCrisisSolveThese DaysResolveNext GenerationPlaywrightKnockingYounger GenerationMoral CourageNorwegiansIbsen
Author:Al Gore
Create image

“There are two threats to reason, the opinion that one knows the truth about the most important things and the opinion that there is no truth about them. Both of these opinions are fatal to philosophy; the first asserts that the quest for truth is unnecessary, while the second asserts that it is impossible. The Socratic knowledge of ignorance, which I take to be the beginning point of all philosophy, defines the sensible middle ground between two extremes.”

KnowsFirstsTwoImportantReasonPhilosophyOpinionImpossibleMiddleIgnoranceTruth IsImportant ThingsThreatExtremesSensibleQuestsUnnecessaryMiddle GroundTwo ExtremesSocratic
Author:Allan Bloom
Create image

“We have two distinct types of political organization to take into account; and clearly, too, when their origins are considered, it is impossible to make out that the one is a mere perversion of the other. Therefore when we include both types under a general term like government, we get into logical difficulties; difficulties of which most writers on the subject have been more or less vaguely aware, but which, until within the last half-century, none of them has tried to resolve.”

Has BeensTwoGovernmentLastsPoliticalTermHalfImpossibleSubjectsCenturyTypeOrganizationAccountsDifficultyMereLogicalResolvePerversionMake Out
Author:Albert J. Nock
Create image

“English stupidity is an organism so primitive that it is apparently impossible to kill off. It reminds me of Physarum Polycephalum, the gigantic slime mould recently bred by scientists at Bonn. Bright yellow and about two millimetres thick, this monocellular creature--neither plant nor animal--grew to a size of 10 square yards before the scientists took fright and froze it. It can smell its favourite food, and move towards it at a speed of up to two centimetres an hour. This favourite food is porridge.”

TwoMovingHoursAnimalImpossibleGrewCreaturesScientistPlantSizeSmellStupiditySpeedSquaresYellowThickFavouritePrimitiveOrganismsYardsFrightMouldSlimePorridge
Author:Neal Ascherson
Create image

“It is our genetic nature as a species to believe as young children that our parents and elders are right. We watch them to see what's what. Later on we can judge for ourselves and rebel if need be, but when we're just months old, or a year or two, and a parent looks at us with impatience, or disgust, or disdain, or just leaves us there to cry and doesn't answer us even though we're longing to be embraced and nurtured, we assume that something must be wrong with us. Unfortunately, at that age it's impossible to think there might be something wrong with them.”

IfsThinkingNeedsYearsBelieveLooksChildrenTwoMightAgeYoungParentAnswersWatchesImpossibleHuman NatureSelf EsteemCryJudgingMonthsEmbraceLongingAssumingParentingSpeciesRebelDisgustingEldersImpatienceRaising ChildrenYoung ChildrenDisdainBad Parenting
Author:Jean Liedloff
Create image

“Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires of an impossible - and incidentally of a highly undesirable - social revolution which, in destroying individual rights - including property rights - and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance or the preservation of mankind is worthwhile.”

LittlesTwoReasonPoliticsIndividualSocialEconomyRightsImpossibleMankindRevolutionPropertyIncludingAgentsChiefsReason WhyLiberalismDestroyingWorthwhilePreservationProperty RightsIndividual RightsUndesirableSocial Revolution
Book:African and European Addresses
Create image

“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
Create image

“All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate.”

KnowsMenTwoIdeasDifferentBodyWould BeTogetherTurnsUniverseImaginationAnimalUnitedClassTakenImpossibleEssentialsPlantSensesDisorderImperfectionLinkedCurvesFossils
Author:Gottfried Leibniz
Create image

“I don't know if there's a proper way to define toughness in a runner, but I do know that there comes a sudden moment when the mindset shifts. The impossible becomes doable, or at least attemptable. The long run goes from two miles to four to ten to fifteen, until it becomes routine at some point deep in an intense training cycle to knock off a couple hours without giving it a thought.”

IfsKnowsWayGivingLongTwoMomentsRunningHoursFourImpossibleCoupleTenTrainingMindsetMilesIntenseCyclesRoutineLong RunsFifteenRunnersToughnessIntense Training
Author:Martin Dugard
Create image

“It is hard to combine and unite these two qualities, the carefulness of one who is affected by circumstances, and the intrepidity of one who heeds them not. But it is not impossible: else were happiness also impossible.”

TwoHardQualityImpossibleCircumstancesAffectedHeedCarefulness
Book:Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion
Create image

“They are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin: women are, on the one hand, subjects of an extremely real and abject (as Julia Kristeva put it) body and denigrated sexuality; on the other, the proliferation of images, and their digitalisation produces more and more abstract and air-brushed representations of impossible female bodies. Both indicate, certainly, a "lack of progress." But, one hopes, discussions and resistance are emerging in response.”

TwoRealBodyHandsSidesProgressImpossibleAirSubjectsProduceFemaleResponseSexualityResistanceDiscussionAbstractRepresentationCoinsEmergingTwo SidesJuliaProliferationFemale Body
Author:Laura Mulvey
Create image

“It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.”

PeopleIfsShouldTryingLongStillsTwoMightAmericaThreeNaturalFreedomCommonLibertyMillionsVirtueImpossibleKingsHundredHorseAgreeVicesNobleExperimentsInequalityPreservesRisingDistinctionEmpiresArtificialHobbiesFreemanConfounding
Book:Works: with a life of the author
Create image

“There is no nation on the continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there isno nation on the continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm, than Russia.We are so separate that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other.”

TwoReasonUseSeemsAbleNationsCommonImpossibleConflictEuropeEnglandHarmRussiaCommon SenseContinentsTwo Nations
Author:John Bright
Create image

“As soon as the dialogue between two people touches on something fundamental, essential, numinous, and a certain rapport is felt, it gives rise to a phenomenon which Lévy-Bruhl fittingly called participation mystique. It is an unconscious identity in which two individual psychic spheres interpenetrate to such a degree that it is impossible to say what belongs to whom.”

PeopleGivingTwoCertainIndividualFeltImpossibleIdentityEssentialsDegreesFundamentalsDialogueUnconsciousPhenomenonSpheresParticipationPsychicsMystiqueRapportNuminous
Book:Civilization in transition
Create image

“Showrunning is not a one-man job; it's literally impossible to do for one person. I have learned the hard way now from two seasons, one with Red Widow, and this, I can't control everything. I certainly have tried, but having an incredibly strong team around you, surrounding yourself with incredibly talented people, that is the trick, and I certainly had that for the first season here of Jessica Jones.”

PeopleMenWayFirstsPersonsI CanTwoHardJobsStrongImpossibleTeamRedSeasonsTricksOne ManI Have LearnedWidowsJessicaHard WayJessica Jones
Author:Melissa Rosenberg
Create image

“About two-thirds of the face of Marx is beard, a vast solemn wooly uneventful beard that must have made all normal exercise impossible. It is not the sort of beard that happens to a man, it is a beard cultivated, cherished, and thrust patriarchally upon the world.”

MenWorldMadeTwoHappensFacesImpossibleExerciseNormalThirdsBeardSolemnThrust
Book:H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…
Create image

“If you're serious about singing or acting, which are two art forms that get repetitive, the way to keep the music fresh is to recognize that it is totally impossible for it to ever be the same, night after night. You open your mouth and you'd like a certain sound to come out of it, but it doesn't always come out exactly like you thought it was going to come out!”

IfsWayArtTwoFormNightCertainSoundActingImpossibleSeriousLike YouSingingMouthsRepetitive
Author:Mary Travers
Create image

“I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know?”

IfsThinkingKnowsWayYearsKindTwoSufferingPovertyFiveImpossibleEgoDiseaseDestructionMiseryEightDumbUncertaintyDegeneratesUraniumGreat YearGood Years
Author:Louis C. K.
Create image

“...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.”

ShouldMindFirstsStillsTwoIdeasPhilosophyAbleAbilitySawsImpossibleExamplePositive ThinkingAdultsTestsFunctionRateDeterminedPositive AttitudeHopelessHopelessnessImprobableKeep A Positive AttitudePositive Mind
Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald
Create image

“When you're in a two-shot together, you can't be the same as when you're both in singles. Try as you will, it cannot be the same as when you're in the shot together. It simply cannot be. It's physically impossible. You're behind the camera desperately wanting to help your colleague. When it's just you, on your own, it can be self-conscious in a way that you're not when we're just talking, you and I, and then all of a sudden it's me and then it's you. The two-shots were probably more natural.”

WayTryingTwoSelfHelpingTogetherNaturalBehindsTalkingImpossibleConsciousShotsCamerasColleaguesSelf ConsciousSingles
Author:Tom Courtenay
Create image

“To reduce the interpretation of the causality of all kinds of climate changes and of global warming to one variable, CO2, or to a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is impossible to accept. Elementary rationality and my decades-long experience with econometric modelling and statistical testing of scientific hypotheses tell me that it is impossible to make strong conclusions based on mere correlation of two (or more) time series.”

HumansKindLongTwoStrongAcceptingImpossibleSeriesMereClimateClimate ChangeDecadesConclusionAll KindsProportionGlobal WarmingInterpretationMore TimeRationalityHypothesisTestingVariablesCorrelationCo2CausalityModellingEconometrics
Author:Vaclav Klaus
Create image

“If you make a film and then two and a half, three years later, suddenly the country's changed and you look like you just happened to hit it. I actually like being contrarian. I would have preferred to come out three years ago when everyone was disagreeing with me. But hopefully it asks a lot of questions about our responsibility in sending young men and women to war, especially a war that's so complex, where there's no right answer, where they're forced with impossible decisions every day.”

IfsMenYearsLooksTwoWarCountryFilmYoungThreeAsksDecisionAnswersHalfResponsibilityImpossibleHappenedChangedLike YouMen And WomenYears AgoComplexesHopefullyYoung ManThree YearsRight Answers
Author:Paul Haggis
Create image

“Not a state within a state, but the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is, is saying that the black man, since the white man, has found it impossible to bring about integration, other than toke on a ta - other than on a token basis, and which proves that the, the two of us, the ex-slave and the master, can't live in the same house as equals.”

MenTwoStatesFoundHouseBlackWhiteImpossibleMastersProveBasesSlaveHonorableIntegrationWhite ManExesMuhammadTokensElijahTwo Of UsElijah MuhammadHonorable Elijah Muhammad
Author:Malcolm X
Create image

“Work can be undertaken to create an authentic independent political party, a real party, based on popular participation from the ground up, not a top-down candidate producing organization like the two official parties, working from school boards to state legislatures and beyond. Not easy in the regressive U.S. political system, but not impossible.”

TwoRealStatesSchoolPoliticalEasyPartyImpossibleOrganizationIndependentBoardsOfficialsCandidatesParticipationPolitical PartiesLegislaturePolitical SystemsTop DownState LegislaturesSchool Board
Author:Noam Chomsky
Create image