It shows exactly what you can do if you’re a total psychotic.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
Believing in fate produces fate. Believing in freedom will create infinite possibilities.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
The failure wishes he could do things he could never do. He thinks little of what he can do.
—Mark Caine
Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
I’ve discovered I’ve got this preoccupation with ordinary people pursued by large forces.
—Steven Spielberg (b.1946) American Film Director, Screenwriter, Film Producer, Businessperson
The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English Novelist, Scriptwriter
Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.
—Robert Collier (1885–1950) American Self-Help Author
Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Life is a video game. No matter how good you get, you are always zapped in the end.
—Anonymous
I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist.
—Max Lerner (1902–92) Russian-born American Journalist
If I had some idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?
—Richard DeVos (1926–2018) American Businessman, Philanthropist
We must learn our limits. We are all something but none of us are everything.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
You never know what you can do until you try.
—Unknown
The possibilities of creative effort connected with the subconscious mind are stupendous and imponderable. They inspire one with awe.
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible.
—Thomas a Kempis (1379–1471) German Religious Priest, Writer
The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, “Thus far and no farther.”
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
When nothing is sure, everything is possible.
—Margaret Drabble (b.1939) English Novelist, Biographer, Critic, Short Story Writer
As you start to see the possibilities in the impossible, you will begin to see that the world works “perfectly”. You can find reason and purpose in everything—if you open your mind to it.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He’s aware of where he is and what he’s doing, but his mind is on the playing of his instrument with an internal sense of rightness—it is not merely mechanical, it is not only spiritual; it is something of both, on a different plane and a more remote one.
—Arnold Palmer (b.1929) American Sportsperson
A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Anything that has been accomplished by any other human being in the physical realm is within the field of possibility.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
Everyone’s got it in him, if he’ll only make up his mind and stick at it. None of us is born with a stop-valve on his powers or with a set limit to his capacities, There’s no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.
—Charles M. Schwab (1862–1939) American Businessperson
Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
The only service that you can render God is to give expression to what he is trying to give to the world, through you. The only service you can render God is to make the very most of yourself in order that God may live in you to the utmost of your possibilities.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.
—J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) American Financier, Philanthropist, Art Collector
Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities—always see them, for they’re always there.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
She didn’t know it couldn’t be done, so she went ahead and did it.
—Unknown
Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are. You are capable of doing and becoming more than you might imagine.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final.
—Unknown
Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Wonder if there is life on another planet? Let’s suppose there is. Suppose further, that only one star in a trillion has a planet that could support life. If that were the case, then there would be at least 100 million planets that harbored life.
—Ben Sweetland
A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.
—Vince Lombardi, Jr. (1913–70) American Football Player, Coach
Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being occasionally, and learns about how far to attempt to spring.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
There are no limits to your possibilities! Your successes will multiply and increase in proportion to your mastery of the law.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
We never know how high we are till we are called to rise. And then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and where people don’t care to do anything, they shelter themselves under a permission that it cannot be done.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
Look and you will find it—what is unsought will go undetected.
—Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (b.1947) American Self-help Author
The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We must dare to think ‘unthinkable’ thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about ‘unthinkable things’ because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
—J. William Fulbright (1905–95) American Political leader, Politician
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
If you only look at what is, you might never attain what could be.
—Unknown