Quotes on Possibility

I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.

'Let the Great World Spin' at the end talks a lot about connections and light and possibility and the fact that the world doesn't end. Even in the darkest times, we have to go on.

There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself.

In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living.

The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.

Dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.

No astrophysicist would deny the possibility of life. I think we're not creative enough to imagine what life would be like on another planet. Show me a dead alien. Better yet, show me a live one!

I never considered myself a movie star, and I didn't want to become a movie star, because as soon as you do, you throw away that possibility of playing character. You really do. All of a sudden you're just an entity, you know?

So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget," and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency. Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare?

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.

Listen closely. There’s a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don’t give a damn if my work is commercial or not…I’m the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That’s why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don’t believe in yourself.

While people are often content to criticize and blame others for what goes wrong, surely we should at least attempt to put forward constructive ideas. One thing is for certain: given human beings' love of truth, justice, peace, and freedom, creating a better, more compassionate world is a genuine possibility. The potential is there.

The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.

With this mistake I deprived myself of the possibility to make a contribution to the treasury of chess art.

What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else.

There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people, without a plan, could speak a spontaneous, unexpected truth, because revelation rules. Telling words recur in this smart, generous conversation between Stephen Andrews and Gregg Bordowitz: patience, responsibility, feminism, ethics, cosmology, AIDS, gift, freedom, mortality.

Because it would be too agonizing to cope with the possibility that anyone, including our­ selves, could become a prisoner, we tend to think of the prison as disconnected from our own lives. This is even true for some of us, women as well as men, who have already experienced imprisonment.

It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

Failure is built into creativity... the creative act involves this element of 'newness' and 'experimentalism,' then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure.

Democracy is not just a question of having a vote. It consists of strengthening each citizen's possibility and capacity to participate in the deliberations involved in life in society.

Recognize negativism and inferiority attitudes as enemies - do not try to dress them as your friends. you will be tempted to look upon negativism as prudence and inferiorities as humility. Strip off those false cloaks and see these attitudes in their nakedness - as enemies of you and of your possibilities.