It takes great goals to lead us out of our everyday limits into accomplishing more than we ever thought we could or would.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
Now intelligence seemed quantifiable. You could measure someone’s actual or potential height, and now, it seemed, you could also measure someone’s actual or potential intelligence. We had one dimension of mental ability along which we could array everyone… The whole concept has to be challenged; in fact, it has to be replaced.
—Howard Gardner (b.1943) American Cognitive Psychologist
I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose
More numerous of Windows
Superior—for Doors
Of Chambers as the Cedars
Impregnable of Eye
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky
Of Visitors—the fairest
For Occupation—This
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final.
—Unknown
It is heartening to realize that although we may crave comfort and routine, we nourish the soul’s growth primarily through what is hard. As Darwin saw it, it’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.
—Phillips Brooks (1835–93) American Episcopal Clergyman, Author
The only way to discover the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them to the impossible.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
I believe that every human being is potentially capable within his ‘limits’ of fully ‘realizing’ his potentialities; that this, his being cheated and choked of it, is infinitely the ghastliest, commonest, and most inclusive of all the crimes of which the human world can assure itself.
—James Agee (1909–55) American Journalist, Poet, Screenwriter, Film Critic
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
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Once you eliminate the impossible,
whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
What’s the most exceptional thing you’ve done this week? What’s the most exceptional thing you will do next week?
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it.
—Christopher Lasch (1932–94) American Historian, Moralist, Social Critic
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
The cynic says, “One man can’t do anything.” I say, “Only one man can do anything.”
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
Every man believes that he has greater possibilities.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
Possibilitizing is overcoming while you’re undergoing.
—Robert H. Schuller (1926–2015) American Christian Televangelist, Author
Promise is the capacity for letting people down.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
It’s easy to act as if you are a weathervane, always changing your beliefs and words, trying to please everyone around you. But we were born to be lighthouses, not weathervanes. Imagine a vertical axis running through the center of your heart, from your deepest roots to your highest aspirations. That’s your lighthouse. It anchors you in the world and frees you from having to change directions every time the weather shifts. Inside this lighthouse there is a lens and a light. The light represents who you are when nobody else is looking. That light was meant to keep shining, no matter how dark or stormy it gets outside…when you find that light inside you, you will know it. Don’t let anyone else dim it…and one more thing: remember to look for the light inside others. If at first you can’t see it, look deeper. It’s there.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
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
No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American Novelist
Two people can do anything as long as one of them is the Lord.
—Indian Proverb
In the depth of winter I finally learned there was inside me an invincible summer.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Some people who think that everything is a nail, are down on themselves because they are not a hammer. They tend to deprecate their own unique talents and capacities to use a chisel or a pair of pliers.
—Unknown
You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.
—Darwin P. Kingsley (1857–1932) American Insurance Executive