I really like quotes. For me a good quote encapsulates a profound concept in a concise and insightful sentence or two.
And one of my favourite topics when it comes to great quotes is the concept of 'the impossible'. Impossible is probably one of the most misused words in any language and is a concept that can be pondered on many different levels.
Maybe that is why there are so many fantastic quotes about 'the impossible'. Like success, leadership or love it has wide ranging implications and can apply to any facet of our lives.
I hope you enjoy my selection of quotes by the famous and not so famous on 'the impossible'.
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"
- Robert Kennedy
"Scientists have proven that it's impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I don't listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet."
- Carl Lewis
"It is not a lucky word, this name 'impossible'; no good comes of those who have it so often in their mouths."
- Thomas Carlyle
Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.
"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
- Alice in Wonderland
"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious."
- Samuel Johnson
"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"Things are only impossible until they're not."
- Jean-Luc Picard
"What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are."
- Tony Robbins
"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
"I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution."
- Wernher von Braun
"It's kinda fun to do the impossible."
- Walt Disney
"It is impossible to love and to be wise."
- Francis Bacon
"When you say that something is impossible, you have made it impossible."
- Bruce Lee
"Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties."
- Doug Larson
"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."
- Henry Ford
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what other people say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot
We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing."
- Mother Teresa
Why be difficult when, with a bit of effort, you could be impossible?
- Anonymous
Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible.
- Robert H. Schuller
If you make peaceful change impossible... you make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
'What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.'
- Theodore Roethke
Every wall is a door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I would like to know of any others that apply to the idea of 'the impossible'.