Impossible Quotes - Page 15

• As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of solidarity. The more unions you have, the less unity.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Army, Long, Unity

  "Class Unionism". Eugene V. Debs' speech in South Chicago (November 24, 1905), later published in Eugene V. Debs "Debs, His Life, Writings and Speeches: With a Department of Appreciations", 1908.

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• There is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (…) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation.

  Jean Monnet

  Real, Europe, Prosperity

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• The trace I leave to me means at once my death, to come or already come, and the hope that it will survive me. It is not an ambition of immortality; it is fundamental. I leave here a bit of paper, I leave, I die; it is impossible to exit this structure; it is the unchanging form of my life. Every time I let something go, I live my death in writing.

  Jacques Derrida

  Writing, Ambition, Mean

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• It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.

  Virginia Woolf

  Play, Age, Has Beens

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.592, Wordsworth Editions

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• It is impossible to have progress without conscience

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Progress, Conscience

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• God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.

  Walt Whitman

  Children, Revenge, Mean

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• It is almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity.

  Michael Moorcock

  Opinion, Theory, Snobbish

  "Fantastic Metropolis", Christmas Editorial, December 9, 2001.

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• Nothing is impossible to the person who backs DESIRE with enduring FAITH.

  Napoleon Hill

  Desire, Endure, Persons

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.40, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

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• The philosophy of praxis does not aim at the peaceful resolution of existing contradictions in history and society, but is the very theory of these contradictions. It is not the instrument of government of the dominant groups in order to gain the consent and exercise hegemony over the subaltern classes. It is the expression of subaltern classes who want to educate themselves in the art of government and who have an interest in knowing all truths, even the unpleasant ones, and in avoiding the impossible deceptions of the upper class, and even more their own.

  Antonio Gramsci

  Art, Philosophy, Exercise

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• The factory workers say that it's impossible to do anything right. If you arrive five minutes early you are a saboteur; if you arrive five minutes late you are betraying socialism; if you arrive on time they say, Where did you get the watch?

  Len Deighton

  Watches, Saboteurs, Socialism

  Len Deighton (1964). “Funeral In Berlin”

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• As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Art, Anomalies, Way

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

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• Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.

  Don DeLillo

  Barns, White Noise

  Don DeLillo (2011). “White Noise”, p.15, Pan Macmillan

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• It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

  Epicurus

  Men, Able, He Man

  "Principal Doctrines". Translated by Robert Drew Hicks,

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• It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

  Epicurus

  Giving, Important, Matter

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• I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts.

  Barbara Hambly

  Fields, Making Money, Break

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• I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'

  John Cage

  Wall, Writing, Feelings

  Observer magazine Interview, 1982.

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• By being a racing driver you are under risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win. And the main motivation to all of us is to compete for victory, it's not to come 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th. I race to win as long as I feel it's possible. Sometimes you get it wrong? Sure, it's impossible to get it right all the time. But I race designed to win, as long as I feel I'm doing it right.

  Ayrton Senna

  Motivation, Mean, Winning

  Interview at the 1990 Australian Grand Prix, November 1990.

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• As a magician, I try to show things to people that seem impossible. And I think magic, whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. It's practice, it's training, and It's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be. And that's what magic is to me.

  David Blaine

  Pain, Simple, Thinking

  "How I held my breath for 17 minutes". TED Talk, www.ted.com. October 2009.

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• Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into. It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Believe, Fall, Character

  "Something Like An Autobiography".

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• Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension. The pacing is relentless. He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding. It's almost impossible to put this book down. Dead of Night is an excellent read.

  S.G. Browne

  Book, Writing, Heart

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• You stay in touch with the boy who dreamed impossible dreams.

  Hugh Hefner

  Dream, Optimistic, Boys

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• It's impossible to translate Wall Street greed into one or two demands.

  Cornel West

  Wall, Two, Greed

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• Spend time cultivating your deepest desires, no matter how impractical or impossible they seem. It's perfectly OK to want the impossible. It's not OK to pretend that your desires don't matter.

  Steve Pavlina

  Thought Provoking, Desire, Want

  Steve Pavlina (2010). “Personal Development for Smart People”, p.65, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• My life isn't that dramatic. My dad really loves me, he just can't talk on the phone. He's too crippled and shy, and that's almost harder. He's there and he loves me, and I try and try and try, it's just impossible to have a relationship.

  Joey Lauren Adams

  Dad, Father, Phones

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible man, and he crushes him.

  Alan Redpath

  Crush, Christian, Men

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