Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
Interpretation
Many valuable achievements were once considered unattainable until someone accomplished them.
This quote by Louis D. Brandeis emphasizes the idea that many of the significant accomplishments in history were initially met with skepticism or deemed impossible. It serves as a reminder that determination and belief in one's vision can lead to breakthroughs that change the world, urging us to challenge limitations and strive to achieve what seems unachievable.
In practice
Use this quote to inspire a team before starting a challenging project.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.'
In business, the earning of profit is something more than an incident of success. It is an essential condition of success. It is an essential condition of success because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure.
America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
Even when I was a little kid, I always dreamed that I would play Serena in a final of a Grand Slam.
Hard work beats all the tonics and vitamins in the world.
My mother always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me. I have fun running all the Virgin businesses-so a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve.
Be relentless in your pursuit for expansion.
Ignore any loss of nerve, ignore any loss of self-confidence, ignore any doubt or confusion. Move on believing in love, in peace, and harmony, and in great accomplishment. Remember joy isn't a stranger to you. You are winning and you are strong. Love. Love first, love always, love forever.
To help people believe they can achieve victory, put them in a position to experience small successes.
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