Quotes on Possibility

Anything that has been accomplished by any other human being in the physical realm is within the field of possibility.

A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before.

The thousands of possible lives that used to spread out in front of me have snapped shut into one, and all I get is what I've got. It's time to pass on the possibilities, all those deliciously half-open doors, to my children, and drive them to the airports, and wish them bon voyage.

Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

Technological possibilities are irresistible to man. If man can go to the moon, he will. If he can control the climate, he will.

In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

Every aspect of life is pre-programmed to rise to its highest creative possibility. We don't have to make that happen, but we have to allow it to happen. And that itself is the struggle of life: resisting the resistant mind.

To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something.

What I seek is a permanent opening of possibilities.

Today is unique! It has never occurred and it will never be repeated. At midnight it will end, quietly, suddenly, totally. Forever. But the hours between now and then are opportunities with eternal possibilities.

Meditation is a teaching which offers you the possibility of breaking free of this egoic state of consciousness and coming into a whole new realization of who and what you truly are. And all this starts with the willingness to question. To pause for just a moment and realize that maybe you aren't who you imagine yourself to be.

As long as we are flippant and stupid and shallow and think that we know ourselves, we shall never give ourselves over to Jesus Christ; but when once we become conscious that we are infinitely more than we can fathom, and infinitely greater in possibility either for good or bad than we can know, we shall be only too glad to hand ourselves over to Him.

Consciousness is not mind; it is the ground of all being, the ground of both matter and mind. Matter and mind are both possibilities of consciousness.

Religion, politics, society are exploiting you, and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in a machine.

Fear of failure is a far worse condition than failure itself, because it kills off possibilities.

From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.

I don't understand why people talk of art as a luxury when it's a mind-altering possibility.

The Internet offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.