Possibility Quotes - Page 12

• Do you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select? Does she say to herself, 'Go to! here is a distinguished statesman with presidential possibilities; I shall proceed to fall in love with him.' or, 'I shall set my heart upon this musician, whose fame is on every tongue?' or 'this financier, who controls the world's money markets?'

  Kate Chopin

  Falling In Love, Heart, Presidential

  Kate Chopin (2013). “The Awakening: And Selected Short Stories - Beyond the Bayou, Ma'ame Pelagie, Desiree's Baby, Respectable Woman, Kiss, Pair of Silk Stockings, Locket, Reflection (Beloved Books Edition)”, p.115, Lulu Press, Inc

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• In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.

  Cheikh Anta Diop

  Practice, Doubt, Skins

  Cheikh Anta Diop, E. Curtis Alexander, Mwalimu Imara Mwadilifu (1984). “Cheikh Anta Diop: an African scientist : an axiomatic overview of his teachings and thoughts”, Eca Assoc

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• The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization.

  Ariel Durant

  Character, Technology, Opportunity

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• What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Paradox, Eternal, Hereafter

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

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• The possibilities of percussion sounds, I believe, have never been fully realized

  Charles Ives

  Believe, Sound, Percussion

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• That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Inquiry, Matter, Belief

  Joseph Glanvill (1979). “Collected Works of Joseph Glanvill”, Georg Olms Verlag

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• Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.

  Lee Smolin

  Believe, Might, Theory

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.269, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A lot of amateurs are terrified of going up against a player who is clearly better than they are. They never play their best, because they aren't comfortable. There's one surefire way to get over that, and it's to ask yourself, 'What if I beat him?' Imagine the possibility.

  Fuzzy Zoeller

  Player, What If, Way

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• The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on.

  Joseph A. Schumpeter

  Opening Up, Entrepreneur, Reform

  Joseph A. Schumpeter (2013). “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”, p.132, Routledge

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• It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Years, Two, Flying

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• Cynicism cripples our imagination and limits our ability to see faint possibilities amidst glaring problems.

  Cory Booker

  Wise, Imagination, Limits

  Twitter post from Aug 19, 2016

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• Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.

  Colum McCann

  Art, Recovery, Joy

  "Author, author: Stories are there to be told" by Colum McCann, www.theguardian.com. September 4, 2009.

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• I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.

  Aime Cesaire

  Talking, Land, Essence

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• Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.

  Bill Mollison

  Agriculture, Order, Ecosystems

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• Some say God is living there [in space]. I was looking around very attentively, but I did not see anyone there. I did not detect either angels or gods....I don't believe in God. I believe in man - his strength, his possibilities, his reason.

  Gherman Titov

  Believe, Angel, Men

  "Lower Orbits: Remembering Gherman Titov" by Christine Spillson, therumpus.net. August 3, 2017.

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• I don't believe in God. I believe in man -- in his strength, his possibilities, and his reason.

  Gherman Titov

  Believe, Men, Atheism

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• Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.

  Franz Kafka

  Two, Perfection, Firsts

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• A child is a person in whom all possibilities are present - present now at this very moment - not to be educed after many years and efforts manifold on the part of the educator

  Charlotte Mason

  Children, Years, Effort

  Charlotte Mason (2013). “The Original Home School Series”, p.456, Simon and Schuster

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• I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history's repeating itself on many different counts. You don't get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high.

  Benjamin Graham

  Wall, Simple, Different

  Benjamin Graham, New York Institute of Finance (1947). “Current problems in security analysis”

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• There was a big possibility that I would have had to leave Newcastle had Ruud Gullit stayed as manager.

  Alan Shearer

  Newcastle, Bigs, Managers

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• The arts open your heart and mind to possibilities that are limitless. They are pathways that touch upon our brains and emotions and bring sustenance to imagination. Human beings' greatest form of communication, they walk in tandem with science and play, and best describe what it is to be human.

  Jacques d'Amboise

  Art, Communication, Play

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• A blank canvas...has unlimited possibilities.

  Stephanie Perkins

  Canvas, Unlimited Possibilities, Blank

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• I find it strangely beautiful that the camera with its inherent clarity of object and detail can produce images that in spite of themselves offer possibilities to be more than they are a photograph of nothing very important at all, nothing but an intuition, a response, a twitch from the photographer’s experience.

  Joel Meyerowitz

  Beautiful, Intuition, Important

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• Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases - which does not seem very likely.

  Louis Pasteur

  Light, Years, Humanity

  "Louis Pasteur: The man and his theories" by Hilaire Cuny, translated by P. Evans. London: The Scientific Book Club, 1965.

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• The best kind of travel – the kind I wanted to experience – involves a particular state of mind, in which one is not merely open to the occurrence of the unexpected, but to deep involvement in the unexpected, indeed, open to the possibility of having one’s life changed forever by a chance encounter.

  Elisabeth Eaves

  Life Changing, Forever, Mind

  Elisabeth Eaves (2011). “Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents”, p.185, ReadHowYouWant.com

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