“The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed.” IfsWorldHumansDreamWould BeActionLawForceMoralCasesFantasyImpossibleEconomicTheoryBehaviorIdealsAssumingNotionGreedLibertarianAbstractConsistentAbidingSystematicUtopianCalculatingHuman ActionsEconomic TheoryImpossible Dream Author:David Graeber
“The transition from the concept of information in the technical (communication engineering) sense to the semantic (theory of meaning) sense was indeed difficult, if not impossible.” IfsDifficultImpossibleInformationTheoryCommunicationConceptsTransitionEngineering Author:Anatol Rapoport
“Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.” PracticeImpossibleTheoryDelightfulMaximsAxioms Author:Antoine Rivarol
“Being Americans, we prosecute wars to win them, not to have reasonable response, not to have appropriate levels of retaliation. Our theory is you start bombing our cities; we're going to defeat you and make it impossible.” WarWinningLevelsCitiesImpossibleTheoryResponseDefeatReasonableAppropriateBombingRetaliation Author:Newt Gingrich
“Scientific realism in classical (i.e. pre-quantum) physics has remained compatible with the naive realism of everyday thinking on the whole; whereas it has proven impossible to find any consistent way to visualize the world underlying quantum theory in terms of our pictures in the everyday world. The general conclusion is that in quantum theory naive realism, although necessary at the level of observations, fails at the microscopic level.” ThinkingWorldWayWholeTermLevelsImpossibleFailingTheoryEverydayPhysicsConclusionObservationConsistentQuantumRealismProvenNaiveQuantum PhysicsCompatibleQuantum Theory Author:Ravi Gomatam
“Russia is the biggest country in the world. It would be very difficult to surround it, and the world is changing so fast that it would basically be impossible, even in theory.” WorldCountryWould BeDifficultImpossibleTheoryRussiaSurround Author:Vladimir Putin
“For Marx, 'pure' economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible.” SocialImpossibleEconomicTheoryPureStructureSocial StructureEconomic Theory Author:Ernest Mandel
“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
“Archaeology is the study of humanity itself, and unless that attitude towards the subject is kept in mind archaeology will be overwhelmed by impossible theories or a welter of flint chips.” MindHumanityAttitudeStudyImpossibleSubjectsTheoryOverwhelmedChipsArchaeology Author:Margaret Murray
“Constraint theory argues a number of things. First, that the impossible has to be identified. Second, that the actor is then constrained by circumstances to act a certain way. For example, should we invade ISIS? Can we invade ISIS? What would it take to invade ISIS? Once you ask that question you discover the price of that option and then you take a look at American politics and see that the country is probably not prepared to invest the 2 to 3 million people that it would take to defeat ISIS and the insurgency afterwards. All right, so that's not going to happen.” PeopleWayShouldFirstsLooksCountryHappensCertainActorsAsksNumbersMillionsImpossibleExampleTheoryCircumstancesPreparedDefeatArguingAmerican PoliticsIsisConstraintsInsurgency Author:George Friedman
“Constraint theory defines for you what outcomes are possible and what outcomes are impossible. It also eliminates wishful thinking.” ThinkingImpossibleTheoryOutcomesConstraintsWishful Thinking Author:George Friedman
“Both chaos theory and fractal have had contacts in the past when they are both impossible to develop and in a certain sense not ready to be developed.” PastCertainImpossibleReadyTheoryChaosContactNot ReadyFractalsChaos Theory Author:Benoit Mandelbrot
“In the appendix to my History of the Russian Revolution I give a detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshevik party on the October revolution. This study, I hope, will make it impossible in the future to ascribe to [Vladimir] Lenin the theory of Socialism in a single country.” GivingIdeasCountryPartyStudyImpossibleTheoryRevolutionSocialismOctoberBolsheviksRussian RevolutionAppendixOctober Revolution Author:Leon Trotsky
“Maybe one of the jobs of theory or philosophy is to elevate principles that seem impossible, or that have the status of the impossible, to stand by them and will them, even when it looks highly unlikely that they'll ever be realised. But that's ok, it's a service.” LooksPhilosophySeemsJobsPrinciplesImpossibleTheoryUnlikelyRealised Author:Judith Butler