Possibility Quotes - Page 38

• While we are young the idea of death or failure is intolerable to us; even the possibility of ridicule we cannot bear.

  Isak Dinesen

  Failure, Ideas, Bears

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.10, Vintage

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• Black Power If the motive is good, and there are no other possibilities, then seen most deeply it [violence] is nonviolence, because its aim is to help others.

  Dalai Lama

  Helping Others, Black, Violence

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• Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence, --the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all.

  Emma Goldman

  Struggle, Mean, Men

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.25, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• It bothers me to know there is the possibility that I as a Christian would be not only an underdog, but that I would be trodden upon if I claimed that I was a Christian.

  Lee Greenwood

  Christian, Underdog, Would Be

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• Europe has what we [Americans] do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities.

  James A. Baldwin

  Europe, Tragedy, Needs

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• Either God exists or He doesn't. Either I believe in God or I don't. Of the four possibilities, only one is to my disadvantage. To avoid that possibility, I believe in God.

  Blaise Pascal

  God, Believe, Four

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• Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of Sacralizing person and community.

  Ivan Illich

  Latin, America, Community

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The church, change, and development”

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• Human judgment of human actions is true and void , that is to say, first true and then void.... The judgment of the word is true, the judgment in itself is void.... Only he who is a party can really judge, but as a party he cannot judge. Hence it follows that there is no possibility of judgment in the world, only a glimmer of it.

  Franz Kafka

  Party, Judging, World

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• The people who fear humor - and they are many - are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.

  Robertson Davies

  Humor, Light, People

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• The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.

  Lewis Mumford

  Moon, Men, Discipline

  Lewis Mumford (2016). “The Culture of Cities”, p.372, Open Road Media

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• The future looks extremely bright indeed, with lots of possibilities ahead -- big possibilities. Like the song says, We've just begun.

  Bruce Lee

  Song, Looks, Bigs

  Bruce Lee (2015). “Bruce Lee: Letters of the Dragon: An Anthology of Bruce Lee's Correspondence with Family, Friends, and Fans 1958-1973”, p.152, Tuttle Publishing

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• Modern discussions of the possibility of tragedy are not exercises in literary analysis; they are exercises in cultural diagnostics, more or less disguised.

  Susan Sontag

  Exercise, Tragedy, Analysis

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• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

  Arthur Bloch

  Adversity, Damage, Causes

  "Grants: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?". Article by Cecilia Blanford, www.grantprofessionals.org. February 22, 2012.

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• The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.

  Salvatore Quasimodo

  Character, Men, Stories

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• As far as world war goes, there are really only two possibilities: either war provokes revolution, or revolution averts war.

  Mao Zedong

  War, Two, World

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• Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Believe, Care

  1970 Going Steady.

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• Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Mean, Men, Race

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• You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Government, Giving, Gossip

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• Ironically, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Errors, Mountain, Doe

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• The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do, aided by modern technology, which enables me, having long since moved beyond longhand, to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Writing, Technology, Errors

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• Money is like any other language through which people communicate. People who speak the same language tend to find each other. If you are one whose money speaks of protection and hoarding, you will find yourself involved with others whose money speaks the same language. You will be staring at each other with hooded eyes and closed fists and suspicion will be your common value. If your money speaks of sharing, you will find yourself among people who want their money to speak the language of sharing, and your world will be filled with possibility.

  Kent Nerburn

  Money, Eye, People

  Kent Nerburn (2010). “Simple Truths: Clear and Simple Guidance on the Big Issues in Life”, p.33, New World Library

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• There are such wonderful possibilities in the life of each man and woman! No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.

  Samuel Gompers

  Live Life, Inspiration, Opportunity

  Samuel Gompers (1957). “Seventy years of life and labor: an autobiography”

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• My life had become an endless race against the clock. I was always in a hurry, scrambling to save a minute here, a few seconds there. My wake-up call came when I found myself toying with the idea of buying a collection of One-Minute Bedtime Stories Snow White in 60 seconds. Suddenly it hit me: my rushaholism has got so out of hand that I'm even willing to speed up those precious moments with my children at the end of the day. There has to be a better way, I thought, because living in fast forward is not really living at all. That's why I began investigating the possibility of slowing down.

  Carl Honore

  Children, Race, Hands

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• As with any other great force of nature, there is both glory and danger in the stories we tell ourselves. Some are toxic and keep our problems festering. Others are tonic and bring us beyond the limitations of our previous history. To be in a life of our own definition, we must be able to discover which stories we are following and determine which ones help us grow the most interesting possibilities.

  Dawna Markova

  Interesting, Toxic, Stories

  Dawna Markova (2000). “I Will Not Die An Unlived Life: Reclaiming Passion and Purpose”, Conari Press

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• You must live life in such a spirit that you make in every moment the best of possibilities.

  Carl Jung

  Live Life, Spirit, Moments

  Carl Gustav Jung, Claire Douglas (1997). “Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930-1934 by C.G. Jung”, p.760, Princeton University Press

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