QuoteProject
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Aristotle
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

It's better to strive for a seemingly impossible goal than to settle for a doubtful outcome.

This quote by Aristotle emphasizes the value of aiming for ambitious goals, even if they seem unattainable, over accepting outcomes that lack credibility. It suggests that the pursuit of significant challenges can lead to growth and discovery, while settling for less may result in stagnation and doubt.

Themes

ImpossibilityPossibilityPhilosophyGoalsAmbition

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about pursuing dreams, this quote could inspire the audience to chase ambitious goals.

More from Aristotle

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
AristotleRead
Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
AristotleRead
For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.
AristotleRead
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
AristotleRead
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.
AristotleRead
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
AristotleRead

Similar quotes

We know that we cannot live together without rules which tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is permitted and what is prohibited. We know that it is law which enables men to live together, that creates order out of chaos. We know that law is the glue that holds civilization together.
Robert KennedyRead
We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negative terms: that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country's 'inhumanity to the black man.'
Steven BikoRead
But sea power has never led to despotism. The nations that have enjoyed sea power even for a brief period-Athens, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, England, the United States-are those that have preserved freedom for themselves and have given it to others. Of the despotism to which unrestrained military power leads we have plenty of examples from Alexander to Mao.
Samuel Eliot MorisonRead
In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology
Barack ObamaRead
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.
Isaac NewtonRead
If you are serious about your religion, if you really wish to commit yourself to the spiritual quest, you must learn how to use psychochemicals. Drugs are the religion of the twenty-first_x000D_ century. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelic drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did it in the first century A.D., and besides_x000D_ telescopes are unnatural.
Timothy LearyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.