Impossibility Quotes - Page 7

• Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.

  Desmond Tutu

  Peace, War, Gun

  Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

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• There can be no autonomous agent with unitary interests called 'society' that exerts causal influence. This is a logical impossibility

  David Buss

  Agents, Influence, Economics

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• It just takes the faith of a little seed to make a way through what might to be impossibility, and the ability will match the occasion. The outcome will defy explanation. The liberation will not be televised when it arrives like lightning in the skies.

  Josh Garrels

  Faith, Inspiration, Sky

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• It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, Events, Would Be

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2014). “The Federalist Papers”, p.77, Courier Corporation

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• If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

  George Washington

  Attitude, War, Government

  George Washington, United States. President (1789-1797 : Washington) (1847). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796”, p.11

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• In the phusical sense, 'playing a fret less instrument in tune' is an impossibility. Hence what we call 'playing in tune' is no more than an extremely rapid skilfully carried out improvement of the originally inexactly located pitch.

  Carl Flesch

  Music, Tunes, Improvement

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• In two words, impossible.

  Samuel Goldwyn

  Funny, Witty, Two

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• A woman as the leader of the Free World is an impossibility. Muslim countries won't talk to you.

  Geena Davis

  Leadership, Country, World

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• The Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki once stated, 'International cultural exchange is impossible - therefore we must try.' I agree with all my heart. The impossibility of seeing beyond one's own cultural context is a political act in the world and has the potential to break down the rigid assumptions surrounding us.

  Anne Bogart

  Heart, Political, Trying

  Anne Bogart (2007). “And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World”, p.16, Taylor & Francis

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• Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.

  Annie Dillard

  Book, Firsts, Excitement

  "Write Till You Drop". www.nytimes.com. May 28, 1989.

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• A creator is someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates possibilities.

  Gilles Deleuze

  Possibility, Creator

  Gilles Deleuze (1998). “Essays Critical and Clinical”, p.48, Verso

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• Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.

  Charles Babbage

  Eye, Effort, Mind

  Charles Babbage (1989). “Scientific and Miscellaneous Papers”

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• When we are children, we have a tranquil acceptance of mystery which is driven out of us later on, by curiosity and education and experience. But it is possible to find one's way back. With affection and respect, I disagree totally with Penelope Lively's conviction about the 'absolute impossibility of recovering a child's vision.' There _are_ ways, imperfect, partial, fleeting, of looking again at a mystery through the eyes we used to have. Children are not different animals. They are us, not yet wearing our heavy jacket of time.

  Susan Cooper

  Children, Eye, Acceptance

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• A life lived in chaos is an impossibility.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Chaos

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.138, Convergent Books

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• A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Hair

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.209, Penguin

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• Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine.

  Victor C. Ferkiss

  Struggle, Mean, Loss

  Victor C. Ferkiss (1969). “Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality”

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• We must look to Mary's example to know how to deal with the glorious impossibilities of God. Look how she turned the world upside down by making one simple statement.

  Calvin Miller

  Christmas, Simple, Example

  Calvin Miller (2006). “The Christ of Christmas”, p.53, B&H Publishing Group

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• Nature decrees that we do not exceed the speed of light. All other impossibilities are optional.

  Robert Breault

  Happiness, Success, Hope

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• Faith is not an art. Faith is not an achievement. Faith is not a good work of which some may boast while others can excuse themselves with a shrug of the shoulders for not being capable of it. It is a decisive insight of faith itself that all of us are incapable of faith in ourselves, whether we think of its preparation, beginning, continuation, or completion.

  Karl Barth

  Art, Atheist, Thinking

  "A Karl Barth Reader".

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• Instead of gambling on the eternal impossibility of the revolution and on the fascist return of a war-machine in general, why not think that a new type of revolution is in the course of becoming possible, and that all kinds of mutating, living machines conduct wars, are combined and trace out a plane of consistance which undermines the plane of organization of the World and the States?

  Gilles Deleuze

  War, Thinking, Organization

  Gilles Deleuze, Claire Parnet (1987). “Dialogues”, Burns & Oates

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• Of course I constantly despair at my own incapacity, at the impossibility of ever accomplishing anything, of painting a valid, true picture or even knowing what such a thing ought to look like. But then I always have the hope that, if I persevere, it might one day happen. And this hope is nurtured every time something appears, a scattered, partial, initial hint of something which reminds me of what I long for, or which conveys a hint of it – although often enough I have been fooled by a momentary glimpse that then vanishes, leaving behind only the usual thing.

  Gerhard Richter

  Knowing, Long, Leaving

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• The idea that we live in a post-modern culture is a myth. In fact a post-modern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. Nobody is a post-modernist when it comes to reading the labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison! You better believe that texts have objective meaning!

  William Lane Craig

  Believe, Reading, Ideas

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• I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles -- the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Saviour and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to... The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scripture... Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Self, Circles

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• Impossibility is only a sum of greater unrealised possibles. It veils an advanced stage and a yet unaccomplished journey.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Journey, Veils, Stage

  Aurobindo Ghose, Sri Aurobindo (1989). “The Supramental Manifestation, and Other Writings”, Lotus Press (WI)

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• Work is only justified by leisure time. To admit the emptiness of leisure time is to admit the impossibility of life.

  Guy Debord

  Leisure, Emptiness, Justified

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