Quotes about possible

A collection of quotes on the topic of possibility, possible, doing, use.

Quotes about possible

Bob Marley photo

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
Yuzuru Hanyu photo

““I believe – and this is the case not only for figure skating but for other forms of art including ballet and musicals as well – that this artistry is very much based on having the correct technique and a strong foundation at the core of everything. It is upon these that the artistry is built, and without that strong foundation and that basis in technique, it is not possible to have that full artistry required as well.””

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Source: Original: (ja) たとえばバレエとかミュージカルとかもそうですけれども、芸術というのは、明らかに正しい技術、徹底された基礎によって裏付けされた表現力、芸術であって、それが足りないと芸術にはならないと僕は思っています。

Source: Interview at the Foreign Correspondence Club of Japan from 27 February 2018
https://quotepark.com/authors/yuzuru-hanyu/

Tom Hiddleston photo
Robert Baden-Powell photo

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
Francis of Assisi photo
T.S. Eliot photo

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)

Etty Hillesum photo
Franz Liszt photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Sadhguru photo
Jim Carrey photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored?”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in "Atatürk" in Images of a Divided World (29 October 2006) http://jmilton6000.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/ataturk/
Variant translation: Humankind consists of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?
Context: Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Thomas Merton photo

“You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Source: Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

Johnny Depp photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

"Herbert West: Re-Animator" in "Home Brew" Vol. 1, No. 1 (February 1922)
Fiction

Frank Zappa photo

“Without deviation, progress is not possible.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)

Rick Riordan photo
Dan Brown photo

“Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.”

Source: Digital Fortress

Ram Dass photo
Werner Heisenberg photo
Xenophon photo

“As to what happened next, it is possible to maintain that the hand of heaven was involved, and also possible to say that when men are desperate no one can stand up to them.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Hellenica Bk. 7, as translated by Rex Warner in A History of My Times (1979) p. 398.

Socrates photo

“If, I say now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods… then I would be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. …this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men — that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

29a–b
Alternate translation: "To fear death, is nothing else but to believe ourselves to be wise, when we are not; and to fancy that we know what we do not know. In effect, no body knows death; no body can tell, but it may be the greatest benefit of mankind; and yet men are afraid of it, as if they knew certainly that it were the greatest of evils."
Plato, Apology

Ferdinand Foch photo
Ptolemy photo

“We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible.”

Book III, sec 1 (trans. Gerald J. Toomer)
Almagest

Claude Monet photo

“I have gone back to some things that can't possibly be done: water, with weeds waving at the bottom. It is a wonderful sight, but it drives one to crazy to try to paint it. But that is the kind of thing I am always a tackling.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in Monet's letter to art-critic and his friend Gustave Geffroy, 22 June 1890; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 129
1890 - 1900

Jacques Lacan photo
Sun Tzu photo
T.S. Eliot photo
René Girard photo

“What Jesus invites us to imitate is his own desire, the spirit that directs him toward the goal on which his intention is fixed: to resemble God the Father as much as possible.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

Source: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Tennessee Williams photo

“The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.”

Source: "The Past, the Present and the Perhaps," http://books.google.com/books?id=mTRaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+future+is+called+perhaps+which+is+the+only+possible+thing+to+call+the+future+And+the+important+thing+is+not+to+allow+that+to+scare+you%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage introduction to Orpheus Descending (1957)

Oscar Wilde photo
Judith Butler photo

“Possibility is not a luxury; it is as crucial as bread.”

Source: Undoing Gender

Holly Black photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Bob Schieffer photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Maria Montessori photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“The nation and the government in Germany are one thing. The will of the people is the will of the government and vice versa. The modern structure of the German State is a higher form of democracy [ennobled democracy] in which, by virtue of the people’s mandate, the government is exercised authoritatively while there is no possibility for parliamentary interference to obliterate and render ineffective the execution of the nation’s will.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

“On National-Socialist Germany And Her Contribution Towards Peace.” Speech to the representatives of the international press at Geneva on September 28. 1933. German League of Nations Union News Service, PRO, FO 371/16728. Included within Völkerbund: Journal for International Politics, Ausgaben 1-103, 1933, p.16
1930s

Smith Wigglesworth photo

“Only believe, only believe. All things are possible, only believe.”

Smith Wigglesworth (1859–1947) British evangelist

Page 4
The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:

Erich von Manstein photo
Brian Cox (physicist) photo

“As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent (10^-84). And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the universe isn't a star or a planet or a galaxy. It isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. And that time is now. Humans have walked the earth for just the shortest fraction of that briefest of moments in deep time. But in our 200,000 years on this planet we've made remarkable progress. It was only 2,500 years ago that we believed that the sun was a god and measured its orbit with stone towers built on the top of a hill. Today the language of curiosity is not sun gods, but science. And we have observatories that are almost infinitely more sophisticated than those towers, that can gaze out deep into the universe. And perhaps even more remarkably through theoretical physics and mathematics we can calculate what the universe will look like in the distant future. And we can even make concrete predictions about its end. And I believe that it's only by continuing our exploration of the cosmos and the laws of nature that govern it that we can truly understand ourselves and our place in this universe of wonders.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny

Gottfried Leibniz photo

“Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Or, comme il y a une infinité d'univers possibles dans les idées de Dieu, et qu'il n'en peut exister qu'un seul, il faut qu'il y ait une raison suffisante du choix de Dieu qui le détermine à l'un plutôt qu'à l'autre. Et cette raison ne peut se trouver que dans la convenance, dans les degrés de perfection que ces mondes contiennent, chaque possible ayant droit de prétendre à l'existence à mesure de la perfection qu'il enveloppe.
La monadologie (53 & 54).
The Monadology (1714)

Rudolf Clausius photo
Henri Fayol photo
Richard Wurmbrand photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Albert Einstein photo

“It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"On the Method of Theoretical Physics" The Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered at Oxford (10 June 1933); also published in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (April 1934), pp. 163-169., p. 165. [thanks to Dr. Techie @ www.wordorigins.org and JSTOR]
There is a quote attributed to Einstein that may have arisen as a paraphrase of the above quote, commonly given as “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler,” "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler", or “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” See this article from the Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ for a discussion of where these later variants may have arisen.
The original quote is very similar to Occam's razor, which advocates that among all hypotheses compatible with all available observations, the simplest hypothesis is the most plausible one.
The aphorism "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" is normally taken to be a warning against too much simplicity and emphasizes that one cannot simplify things to a point where the hypothesis is no more compatible with all observations. The aphorism does not contradict or extend Occam's razor, but rather stresses that both elements of the razor, simplicity and compatibility with the observations, are essential.
The earliest known appearance of Einstein's razor is an essay by Roger Sessions in the New York Times (8 January 1950) http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30615FE3559137A93CAA9178AD85F448585F9, where Sessions appears to be paraphrasing Einstein: “I also remember a remark of Albert Einstein, which certainly applies to music. He said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.”
Another early appearance, from Time magazine (14 December 1962) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872923,00.html: “We try to keep in mind a saying attributed to Einstein—that everything must be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.”
1930s

Enrico Fermi photo

“There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.”

Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) Italian physicist

As quoted in Nuclear Principles in Engineering (2005) by Tatjana Jevremovic, p. 397

Epictetus photo
Alan Watts photo
Dua Lipa photo

“Everything that I do is very autobiographical. I’m trying to be as much of an open book as possible and give the audience every single piece of me.”

Dua Lipa (1995) English singer and songwriter

Dua Lipa Plays With Boundaries, Interview, 2017-03-29 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/dua-lipa,

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Yukio Mishima photo

“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.”

Source: Runaway Horses

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/06/02/books/book-reviews/yukio-mishimas-demons-full-force-runaway-horses/ note: Runaway Horses (1969)

Daisaku Ikeda photo
Franz Kafka photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot, unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, forget that we are living in a class society from which there is no way out, nor can there be, save through the class struggle. In every class society, whether based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, wage-labor, the oppressor class is always armed. Not only the modern standing army, but even the modern militia - and even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland, for instance - represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. That is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it. Suffice it to point to the use of troops against strikers in all capitalist countries.
A bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest fundamental and cardinal facts of modern capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to “demand” “disarmament”! That is tantamount of complete abandonment of the class-struggle point of view, to renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: arming of the proletariat to defeat, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics possible for a revolutionary class, tactics that follow logically from, and are dictated by, the whole objective development of capitalist militarism. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its world-historic mission, to consign all armaments to the scrap-heap. And the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

Martin Luther photo

“Peace if possible. Truth at all costs.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Pablo Picasso photo
Sadhguru photo
Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

12 September 1848, "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail", Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 546 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tocqueville_-_%C5%92uvres_compl%C3%A8tes,_%C3%A9dition_1866,_volume_9.djvu/564; Translation (from Hayek, The Road to Serfdom):
Original text:
La démocratie étend la sphère de l'indépendance individuelle, le socialisme la resserre. La démocratie donne toute sa valeur possible à chaque homme, le socialisme fait de chaque homme un agent, un instrument, un chiffre. La démocratie et le socialisme ne se tiennent que par un mot, l'égalité; mais remarquez la différence : la démocratie veut l'égalité dans la liberté, et le socialisme veut l'égalité dans la gêne et dans la servitude.
1840s

Eliphas Levi photo

“Everything is possible to him who wills only what is true! Rest in Nature, study, know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act and be silent!”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual

Reinhold Niebuhr photo

“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)
Source: The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses

Oprah Winfrey photo

“You are where you are in life because of what you believe is possible for yourself.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Michel Foucault photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Douglas Adams photo

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

Variant: Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Source: Mostly Harmless

Viktor E. Frankl photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: Tears and Saints (1937)

George Orwell photo
Paulo Freire photo
Gloria Steinem photo
Nancy Mitford photo
Milton Friedman photo

“I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and other big government Republicans hijacked the conservative cause (2006) by Richard A Viguerie, p. 46 <!-- similar to statement previously dated (16 September 2003) — but linked page indicates "interview" by John Hawkins dated 25 February 2012 http://www.rightwingnews.com/interviews/friedman.php : I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes. -->
Context: I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government … How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes.

Socrates photo
Martin Luther photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Alan Guth photo

“It becomes very tempting to ask whether, in principle, it's possible to create a universe in the laboratory—or a universe in your backyard—by man-made processes.”

Alan Guth (1947) American theoretical physicist and cosmologist

"A Universe in Your Backyard," in Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1996) ed. John Brockman.

Ludwig von Mises photo
Sergey Lavrov photo

“As the Libyan experience has shown, sadly, a military scenario is possible. We won’t allow any more such disingenuous interpretations. We will see to it that no resolution is open to interpretation like the one on Libya.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

Moscow to Block Any Bid for Force Against Iran, October 2012 http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121023/176857678.html

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Variant translation: Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.
As quoted in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1974) edited by Leopold Labedz
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.