quotations about possibility
We repose too much upon the actual, when we should be seeking to develop the possibilities of our being. It is true of nearly all of us, that what we have done is little compared with what we might have accomplished, or may hereafter effect.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
What after all has maintained the human race on this old Globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them.
JANE ADDAMS
Peace and Bread in Time of War
Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.
JOHN HEYWOOD
The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood
One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world -- making the most of one's best.
HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK
Reader's Digest, 1937
Every noble work is at first impossible.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Chartism: Past and Present
Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.
CHARLES CHESTNUT
The Marrow of Tradition
Do not become so attached to any one belief that you cannot see past it to another possibility.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Brisingr
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
THOMAS MERTON
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
We give ourselves over to possibility, to whim and fancy, to the bed, to the pillow, the tiny white tablet. And these choose for us.
TIM O'BRIEN
In the Lake of the Woods
Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Everything is possible provided it is based on love.
MARC CHAGALL
Marc Chagall on Art and Culture
For as soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely, whether it's true or not.
NEIL GAIMAN
American Gods
What wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Either/Or
We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Vince Lombardi's Winning Ways
DAWN! thou hast every possibility of life! What canst thou not reveal to man in thy flaming sky? Enough thou sayest, to recreate a world of men. Blind are we. How many of us read thy words aright? We pass them by, cold letters, divining not the fire of eternal life behind them burning. Dawn, thy opportunity is full! We, alas, know not the meaning of thy gorgeous page. Dazed we watch thy letters pale; cold embers, left upon the sky; Life's opportunity flickering into naught.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
Possibility is not a promise, it's a call to action. A call to rise up and walk the path you're meant to walk. And it can only exist if you choose it.
STEPHENIE ZAMORA
"Possibility Is Not a Promise, It's a Call to Action", Huffington Post, January 19, 2016
The inconceivable had become the usual, the impossible possible, and the possible and the usual unthinkable.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
The Confession of Mikhail Bakunin
A bare possibility that a thing may be or not be, is no just cause of doubting whether a thing be or not.
JOHN TILLOTSON
The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson
I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
letter, 1886