Quotes about possible
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“Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.”

Giorgio Agamben (1942) Italian philosopher

Source: Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy

Past

“You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

People

“Others see their possibility in the reality of you. Your message is your life lived.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Life, Reality

“I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Variant: Know what you want in life and go after it. I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities.
Source: Anthem

Failure

“Is this the part where you say if I hurt her, you'll kill me?"
"No" Simon said, "If you hurt Clary she's quite capable of killing you herself. Possibly with a variety of weapons.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Parting, Hurt

“Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Education and the Social Order

Life, God, Courage, Future

“The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I'm not sure about the turnip.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

Personality

“Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love

“Change is never easy, but always possible.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Change

“Last night there seemed to be a chance. Anything was possible last night. That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Chance, Night

“It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

World

“Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure: The Basis Of Culture

Way

“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.”

Anne Rice book Servant of the Bones

Source: Servant of the Bones

Life, World, Beauty, Understanding

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

People, Courage, For Bestfriend

“It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed', although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

Books

“…the world is possibility if only you'll discover it.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 7.

World

“It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life, Pain, Forgetting

“Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

Thinking

“Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

Life, Idea, Time

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Variant: What is the nature of the search? you ask. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
Source: The Moviegoer (1961)
Context: To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place-but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead.

Life, Search, Despair

“Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Solitude, Personality

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

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

Variant: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

“Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?… Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

World, Fools, Way

“His retreat into himself is not a final renunciation of the world, but a search for quietude, where alone it is possible for him to make his contribution to the life of the community.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Life, World, Search, Communication

“A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Certain, possible, impossible: here we have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of probability.
4.464
Original German: Die Wahrheit der Tautologie ist gewiss, des Satzes möglich, der Kontradiktion unmöglich
Source: 1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Truth

“After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.”

V.S. Naipaul A Bend in the River

Source: A Bend in the River

Idea

“Yet, even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

Life, Beauty

“Possibly here in the Holocene, or just before ten or twenty thousand years ago, life hit a peek of diversity. Then we appeared. We are the great meteorite.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Mind, Life, and Universe: Conversations with Great Scientists of Our Time

Life, Appearance

“Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

Way, Failure, Understanding, Learning

“Many of us lead family lives. At most, the members of a family stay together for the duration of a lifetime, often much less. While that fleeting moment of being together still lasts, we should try to remain in perfect harmony with each other, while observing the Dharma as much as possible. Night and day, let us turn our minds toward goodness, love, and compassion.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Love, Family, Perfection, Night

“Not everything is about you," Clary said furiously.
"Possibly," Jace said, "but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: Not everything, Jace, is," Clary said furiously.

"Possibly," Jace said, "but you have to admit that the majority of things are.
Source: City of Glass

“We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Life, Secret

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism

Thinking, Sense, Future, Dependency

“When everyone is determined to present someone as a monster, there are two possibilities: either he’s a saint or they themselves are not telling the whole story.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Friendship, Marriage, People

“Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church’ service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.”

William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic

Source: The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28

Life, Sadness, Problem, Thinking

“The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realise that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

An Interview by Sheena McDonald (1995)

Life, World, Beauty, Understanding

“I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People, Behavior, Intelligence

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”

Joseph Hall (1574–1656) British bishop

World

“… the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Way, Intelligence, Future

“Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

Stupidity, Animals

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer … It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

World, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

World, Time, Painting

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

Smedley D. Butler book War Is a Racket

War is a racket (1935)
War is a racket (1935)
Source: War Is a Racket

War, Loss

“One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999)

People, Intelligence, Science

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never happened or couldn't possibly have happened.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Memory

“Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 19
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Thinking

“May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Love, God, Peace, Faith

“The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Interview for KFRC RKO Radio (8 December 1980)

“It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of history.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

History, Failure, Success, Personality

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

Anthony Bourdain book Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Medium Raw (2010)
Source: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

People, Travel, Sleep, Learning

“An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Imagination, Support

“Anything that feels good couldn't possibly be bad.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

Feeling

“Peace is only possible when one of the warring sides takes the first step, the hazardous initiative, the risk of opening up dialogue, and decides to make the gesture that will lead not only to an armistice but to peace.”

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) French philosopher (1930-2004)

War, Peace

“My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

Life, World, Thinking

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Past, Future

“How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

People

“I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend -- if possible, a deaf one.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Girl

“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Faith, Perfection

“Virginia Woolf helps. Her novels make mine possible.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Help

“…I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 115

“The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.”

Monica Ali (1967) British writer and novelist

Source: Brick Lane

“The tree on the mountain takes whatever the weather brings. If it has any choice at all, it is in putting down roots as deeply as possible."---Each New Day”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Mountain, Tree, Weather

“Will looked horrified. "What kind of monster could possibly hate chocolate?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Hate

“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: Wolves of the Calla

Good Night

“I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Question

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Secret

“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Truth

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Recollection by Gilbert J. Greene, quoted in The Speaking Oak (1902) by Ferdinand C. Iglehart and Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln (1917) by Ervin S. Chapman
Posthumous attributions

God

“All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident
enabling unpopular persons to survive.”

Bertrand Russell book In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Source: In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Personality

“With the possible exception of clothes, beauty salons and Frank Sinatra, there are few subjects all women agree upon.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Source: Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover

Women, Beauty, Clothes

“What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

Food

“It’s possible, I’m moving through the hard veins of heavy mountains, like an arc, alone; I’m so deep inside, I see no end in sight, and no distance: everything is getting near and everything near is turning to stone.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Mountain

“There are moments that define a person's whole life. MOMENTS in which everything they are and everything they may possibly become hinge on a single decision.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Life, Decision, Personality

“Love can make you do things that you never thought possible.”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

Love

“Everything stated or expressed by man is a note in the margin of a completely erased text. From what's in the note we can extract the gist of what must have been in the text, but there's always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Life, Feeling, Question, Problem

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XV
Misquoted as "Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense." by Laurence J. Peter in "Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", among many others.
Following the Equator (1897)
Source: Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

Truth