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Impossibility   /ɪmpˌɔsɪbˈɪlɪti/   Listen
Impossibility

noun
(pl. impossibilities)
1.
Incapability of existing or occurring.  Synonym: impossibleness.
2.
An alternative that is not available.  Synonym: impossible action.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Impossibility" Quotes from Famous Books



... city jail prepared for the reception of felons. Crime, however, would appear to have become a monster of terrible mien in those days, far exceeding all the efforts of the authorities to restrict or even to limit the number of malefactors, aside from the apparent impossibility of diminishing them, for again, in 1758, another new jail was found absolutely necessary to the needs of the inhabitants, and was erected on what was then known as "The Fields," now City Hall Park, and where, tradition has it, the prisoners were most barbarously treated. This ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... was not his manner of reasoning with Hastings, whose fidelity to his master's sons was without suspect: and yet the Devil, who never dissuades by impossibility, taught him to try him. And so he did. But when he found by Catesby, who sounded him, that he was not fordable; he first resolved to kill him sitting in council: wherein having failed with his sword, he set the hangman upon him, with a weapon of more weight. And because nothing else could move ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... strange place, I would sit up. Of course there was a rocking-chair; in that I took refuge, and there I sat with a quaint old-fashioned clock for company, with such stout lungs as to render sleep an impossibility. No fairy godmother came in at the key-hole to transform my chair into a couch and that talkative clock into a handmaiden. No ghosts beguiled the weary hours. Eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four! As the clock struck this last hour, a porter pounded on the door, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... spring by saying that he had engaged Jean and douard de Reszke, and kept their names before the people almost up to the time of the opening. He went abroad to engage artists, and even after his return it looked as if it would be a physical impossibility to complete his theater in time for the date set for opening. In fact it was not completed, but when the season arrived he was ready to attempt all that he had said he would do, except keep some wild promises about singers; and when the season closed ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... inches to five feet deep in mud; in one a Dorset man was literally almost drowned and drawn forth with great difficulty. Many cases occurred of semi-submersion, and as for moving up the communication trenches during the winter, it was generally an impossibility, for they were either knee-deep in water or in mud, and simply refused to be drained. So men preferred the risk of a stray bullet to the certainty of liquid mud to the knees and consequent icy discomfort for twenty-four hours ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen

... of the many branches of astronomy that are receiving the most valuable aid at present from photography; but the very value of the gift that is bestowed should make exaggeration an impossibility. Photography can well afford to be generous, but it must first be just, in its estimate of the work that has still to be done in astronomy independently of its aid; and although the older science points with just pride to what is being done for her by her younger sister, still she must ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... of Milan, he there found the imperial army which had retired before him; there was a fight in one of the outskirts; but Bourbon recognized the impossibility of maintaining a siege in a town of which the fortifications were in ruins, and with disheartened troops. On the line of march which they had pursued, from Lodi to Milan, there was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, arquebuses ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... another, till they terminate at the top. Perhaps this apartment impresses the traveller as much as any portion of the cave; because from it he receives his first idea of its gigantic proportions. The vastness, the gloom, the impossibility of taking in the boundaries by the light of lamps—all these produce a deep sensation of awe ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... Maka had begged harder than before to be allowed to remain with Captain Horn, but the latter had made him understand, as well as he could, the absolute necessity of the schooner reaching Callao in good time, and the absolute impossibility of any vessel doing anything in good time without a cook. Therefore, after a personal inspection of the stores left behind, both in the tent and in the Rackbirds' storehouse, which latter place he visited with great secrecy, Maka, with a sad heart, was obliged to leave the only real friend ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... killed two Indians, but the other two I could not tell whether I got my men or not, as I was just in the act of turning my horse when I fired. They fired a perfect shower of arrows at me. To run back down the mountain the way I came was a matter of impossibility, as it was both steep and rocky, so I took around the side of the mountain, thinking that I would be able in a few moments' run to reach the top of the mountain, where I could have a better ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... impossibility," answered Nickols with easy coolness. "The one 'come-back' that is impossible is the woman in that ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... death is now nigh. It is equivalent to what we call Formulism, and Worship of Formulas, in these days of ours. No more immoral act can be done by a human creature; for it is the beginning of all immorality, or rather it is the impossibility henceforth of any morality whatsoever: the innermost moral soul is paralysed thereby, cast into fatal magnetic sleep! Men are no longer sincere men. I do not wonder that the earnest man denounces this, brands ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... is there record of such an Impossibility? Fickle—that implies a change of mind. What woman ever changed her mind any more than her hands? Nonsense, avaunt!—banished be slander! April is not fickle—woman is not fickle. As one is evenly beautiful, divinely serene, bewitchingly winning, so is the other sunny, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... hourly offered up for your safety, and I shall live in hopes that the obstacles which now exist to our union will be removed when you return. Your father may relent when he finds that you are constant, and I know you will be;" and she smiled as she gazed at his countenance, and felt the impossibility of ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... have shown them? Now, perhaps, is the time to revive the well-nigh withered hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have discovered the fallacy of the new observations, and demonstrated the utter impossibility of their existence. I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked-for, and so novel. The shortness of the time, the unexpected nature of the event, the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of being mistaken, have greatly confounded me.' After a certain interval ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... with a song on her lips and proceeded with her bath and dressing. She found herself doing so many things now-a-days that a few months before would have seemed an impossibility. ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... Mavick estate, in its distribution, there are one or two things of interest to the general reader. One of these was the fate of the Golden House, as it was called. Mrs. Mavick had hurried back to her town house, determined to save it at all hazard. The impossibility of this was, however, soon apparent even to her intrepid spirit. She would either sacrifice all else to save it, or—dark thoughts of ending it in a conflagration entered her mind. This was only her first temper. But to keep the house ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... toleration, it did not exist in any country or in any church; there was no such thing as true evangelical freedom. All the Reformers attempted, as well as the Catholics, a compulsory unity of faith; and this is an impossibility. The Reformers adopted a catechism, or a theological system, which all communicants were required to learn and accept. This is substantially the acceptance of what the Church ordains. Creeds are perhaps a necessity in well-organized ecclesiastical bodies, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... was away for some hours, and only returned at sunset. The next day the object of the expedition was disclosed. Hernando called the whole crew, white and Indian, before him. He explained the dangers they were hourly in on the high seas, and the impossibility of fighting any strong adversary. Food was running short, and a long voyage in the galley was out of the question. He proposed to take to the land himself, and hazard his chance of life and liberty there. The Indians could scatter abroad. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... of the heat and light which come from the apparent ruler of the skies. The myth is preserved through the ages, and the child in the school perceives its beauty, while he understands as well as his teacher its impossibility. ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... Yielding to the apparent impossibility of getting anything out of Dr. Quackenboss, except civility, and to the real difficulty of disappointing such very earnest good will, Fleda and Hugh did what older persons would not have done alighted and walked up ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the heart; of a vain love of paradox, or perhaps, in many cases, (as a friend of mine said,) of an amiable wish to frighten "mammas and maiden aunts." But let us be assured that a frivolous sceptic,—a sceptic indeed,—after duly pondering and feeling the doubts he professes to embrace, is an impossibility. What may be expected in the genuine sceptic is a modest hope that he may be mistaken, a desire to be confuted; a retention of his convictions as if they were a guilty secret; or the promulgation ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... during the war. Negro troops were huddled together and forced to the charge by white troops—the poor, deluded, unfortunate beings plied with liquor until all their sensibilities were so deadened that death had no horrors. Grant must have learned early in the day the impossibility of breaking Lee's line by direct charge, for by twelve o'clock the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... habitation. Amidst so many aspects of death, and the apprehension even of approaching judgment, the suspicion that friends were yet alive under the ruins was the most excruciating affliction, since the impossibility of assisting them rendered their death—(miserable and terrible consolation)—a matter of preference and of hope. Fathers and husbands were seen wandering amidst the ruins that covered the objects ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... work of his master. The credit of invention must indubitably rest with Giorgione, but the damage which the picture has sustained through neglect and repainting in years gone by, renders certainty of discrimination between the two hands a matter of impossibility. ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... thank him, that in this whole matter I have been, to the utmost of my power, not unworthy of his introducing you to me, in this respect that, being no longer in the first freshness of life, and having for many years now made up my mind to the impossibility of loving any woman ... having wondered at this in the beginning, and fought not a little against it, having acquiesced in it at last, and accounted for it all to myself, and become, if anything, rather proud of it than sorry ... I say, when real love, making itself at once recognized as such, did ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... oppose to the advance of the Europeans so obstinate a resistance. Though they feared the firearms of the whites, whom they called wizards, it was a long time before they realized their hopeless inferiority, and the impossibility of prevailing in war. Their minds were mostly too childish to recollect and draw the necessary inferences from previous defeats, and they never realized that the whites possessed beyond the sea an inexhaustible reservoir of men and weapons. Even the visit of Lo Bengula's ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran towards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the altar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word 'army,' as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... brave, hardy, and fired with a strange religious enthusiasm. They were all of the seventeenth century, except their rifles. Mounted upon their hardy little ponies, they possessed a mobility which practically doubled their numbers and made it an impossibility ever to outflank them. As marksmen they were supreme. Add to this that they had the advantage of acting upon internal lines with shorter and safer communications, and one gathers how formidable a task lay before the soldiers of the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the Kantishna. Heading straight across an unknown country for the base of the mountain, Judge Wickersham's party unfortunately attacked the mountain by the Peters Glacier and demonstrated the impossibility of that approach, being stopped by the enormous ice-incrusted cliffs of the North Peak. Judge Wickersham used to say that only by a balloon or a flying-machine could the summit be reached; and, indeed, by no other means can the summit ever be ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... teeth without pain, we cannot understand. The case is exactly the same with the principle of Mr Malthus. If superfecundity exists, it exists, no doubt, because it is a less evil than some other evil which otherwise would exist. Can Mr Sadler prove that this is an impossibility? ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Russian communications, and the physical necessity under which the Russians were, on account of the position of their depots and centres of mobilization, of first putting the mass of their men on the south, the physical impossibility under which they lay of putting the mass of their men in the north for the moment, the plan was a sound one; but its success depended entirely upon the tenacity of the second Austrian army, which would have to meet large, and might have to ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... all, and by degrees the impossibility of her assenting to such iniquity became less palpable. And though the wickedness of the scheme was still manifest to her, though she felt that, were she to assent to it, she would, in doing so, give herself ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... or impossibility of night combat continued warmly. The majority of opinion was unfavorable to it: a useless waste of gasoline; the results would not pay for the wear and tear upon valuable fighting planes. Raynaud was not to be persuaded. "Wait and see," ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... only doing the king bare justice to say that he was always ready and willing to keep this part of his royal word—but it proved an impossibility. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... faith by pursuing them with despair, and Rochefoucauld, by his pitiless analysis of the disguises of the human heart, led his readers to suspect their most natural emotions, and well- nigh took away the desire of virtue by proving its impossibility, La Bruyere (1639-1696) endeavored to make the most of our nature, such as it is, to render men better, even with their imperfections, to assist them by a moral code suited to their strength, or rather to their weakness. His "Characters of our ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... reluctant and resigned sort of testimony to his gigantic steadfastness. It is almost as if any change in his manner, any concession to what is usual and esteemed, any amelioration of his blind, relentless exercises of force majeure, were a physical impossibility. One feels him at last to be authentically no more than a helpless instrument (or victim) of that inchoate flow of forces which he himself is so fond of depicting as at once the answer to the riddle of life, and a riddle ten times more ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... Convinced of the impossibility of Bonaparte's triumph, du Bousquier staked the greater part of his property on a fall in the Funds, and kept two couriers on the field of battle. The first started for Paris when Melas' victory was certain; the second, starting four hours later, brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... colonies had torn away, the plan of a union, legislative or federal, of the remainder of British North America had been mooted, and nowhere with greater favour than in Nova Scotia. Geographical difficulties long made it an impossibility, but the steam-engine gave man the triumph over geography, and by 1860 an intercolonial railway, though not built, was evidently buildable. In 1864 the exigencies of Canadian party politics forced federation to the front with startling suddenness. ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... reserve, and this respect for a recognized principle, that enabled the bee-hunter to purchase a great deal of popularity, by giving away liberally an article so much prized. None, indeed, was reserved; Boden seeing the impossibility of carrying it away. Happy would he have been, most happy, could he have felt the assurance of being able to get Margery off, without giving a second thought to any of his effects, whether ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... to tell Wenna that he loved her; how Wenna had dallied with her conscience and been loath to part with him; how at length she had as good as revealed to him that she loved him in return; and how she was now overwhelmed and crushed beneath a sense of her own faithlessness and the impossibility of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... heart which does not respect affliction! The moment she heard the messenger was blind, Ione felt the impossibility of returning a chilling reply. Glaucus had chosen a herald that was indeed sacred—a herald that could not ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... 'child of the clouds' from its cradle in the lofty waste. We reached the Kirk of Ulpha between five and six. The appearance of the little farm-house inn at once made anything approaching to a dinner an impossibility had we wished it ever so much; but in due time we had tea and boiled ham, with two eggs apiece, and were much invigorated by this our first Duddonian meal. The hostess was evidently surprised that we thought of remaining ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... traversing a particularly noisy and unsavoury section of the Commercial Road, and although I could see that Wessex was anxious to impart particulars of the case to Harley, so loud was the din that I recognized the impossibility ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... perfect. The medical staff was cool and collected, the helpers were alert and attentive to business; the waggons, with their conspicuous red crosses, were all well and carefully placed—though in such a fight it was a sheer impossibility to dispose them so as to render them absolutely immune from danger, for shells have a knack of falling where least expected, and when they burst he is a wise man who falls flat on his face and leaves the rest to his Creator and the fortune of war. My next move was to secure a position ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... Englishman, he never surrendered an institution or a doctrine till every means had been exhausted of retaining it, consistently with allegiance to truth. The larger monasteries, therefore, with many of the rest, had yet four years allowed them to demonstrate the hopelessness of their amendment, the impossibility of their renovation. The remainder were to reap the consequences of their iniquities; and the judicial sentence was pronounced at last in a spirit as rational as ever animated ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... existed since the days of him additionally hight Aquinas,)—by a violent attack of pneumonia, which came near terminating my earthly with my Oregon pilgrimage. I had been saved by the indefatigable nursing of the best friend I ever travelled with,—by wet compresses, and the impossibility of sending for any doctor in the region. I had lived to pay San-Francisco hotel-prices for squatter-cabin accommodations in the rural residence of an Oregon landholder, whose tender mercies I fell into from my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... acquainted with your situation. A great extent of works, in their nature incapable of defence, manned with a motley crew of sailors, the greatest part our friends; of citizens, who wish to see us within their walls, & a few of the worst troops who ever stiled themselves Soldiers. The impossibility of relief, and the certain prospect of wanting every necessary of life, should your opponents confine their operations to a simple Blockade, point out the absurdity of resistance. Such is your situation! I am at the head of troops accustomed ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... this liquor is pleasant discussion!" We may observe here that they had been already furnished with a better description of drink—"But with regard to the youth in question, there is one thing puzzles me, oh, most prophetical niece, and that is, that you should take it into your head to effect an impossibility, in other words, to make a gentleman of him; ex quovis ligno nonfit Mercurius, is a ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... while the two men had their smoke, Diana, heedless of Joan's common-sense remonstrance on the score of dew-drenched grass, flung on a cloak and wandered restlessly out into the moonlit garden. She felt that it would be an utter impossibility to sit still, waiting until the men came into the drawing-room, and she paced slowly backwards and forwards across the lawn, a slight, shadowy figure in the patch ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... themselves fortunate in having found a refuge, prepared to join our repast, it was ludicrous to observe the lengthened faces of our servants at this addition to our party. They, having previously lamented the paucity of provisions in the larder, and being aware of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of procuring a further supply, looked on the new-comers as interlopers, who would inevitably diminish the already too ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... the towns on the seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain had continued for four or five generations suggested no fears or suspicions. Tilling of vineyards, building of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility, till certain unmistakable portents that occurred towards the close of the year 1631 roughly dissipated this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes, more or less severe, began at this time to be felt along the whole ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... over and over again, on the highest authority, that it was an idle dream. When we wanted to express the superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be daunted by a priori demonstrations of impossibility. One day there came the rumour that the thing had been achieved, followed soon by ocular demonstration; and now we rub shoulders every day with men who have outsoared the eagle, and—alas!—carried death and destruction ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... impossibility of finding it, and the reflections consequent upon the loss of the money were so unpleasant to me that I was led to make it a subject of prayer, fully trusting that in some way God would so direct that I should come in possession of it. If so, I determined ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... type, and indicating pride, was equally untrue to a generosity of feeling which made friends of all who saw her—except one. A strange exception this one; for who, even in this bad world, could be an enemy to a creature who conciliated sympathy as a love, and defied antipathy as an impossibility? Who could he be? or rather, who could she be? for man seems to be excluded by the very instincts of his nature. The question may be answered by the evolution of facts; than which what other have we even amidst the dark gropings into the mystery ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... everything and around everything, from the sun to a grain of sand, He hath a portion, small or great, of His own most Perfect Existence. Should He hate His Creation, He must perforce hate Himself; and that Love should hate Love is an impossibility. Therefore He loves all His work; and as Love, to be perfect, must contain Pity, Forgiveness, and Forbearance, so doth He pity, forgive, and forbear. Shall a mere man deny himself for the sake of his child or friend? and shall the Infinite Love refuse to sacrifice itself—yea, even ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... so much concerned the welfare of a sister whom he loved as his own self. When he mentioned the circumstances attending the party on board the "Vincennes," she, in the fulness of her love, excused James, and brought up a host of arguments to prove the impossibility of a ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... might have done, and which would have saved me great anxiety, as I should have ventured alone without fear, but could not manage to carry what I possessed; and to engage any to convey them was an impossibility, for the moment I made the proposition to any (even the meanest of the slaves) to accompany me, they ran off into the bush, nor could any entreaty, presents, or threats induce them to venture with me; so, for security, I removed all the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... in utter amazement, the applicant for a position who in answer to question replies "No, I have never taken any courses in biological Science, but I can easily prepare myself to teach it, if need be." The impossibility of such impromptu development of skill in the teaching of biology will become more apparent as ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald

... be alarmed, pretty Mollie," said the man, still speaking French. "I have given the coachman orders to rattle along through the streets. We can talk here at our leisure, and as long as we please. You must perceive the utter impossibility of conversation at a street corner and in a down-pour ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... as a portrait-painter, but the simplicity and uprightness of his heart did not permit him to tolerate or pander to the vanities of man (and woman) kind. To flatter was with him an utter impossibility; and, as he could not invariably consider the "human face divine," he was incapable of assuming the courtly manners so essential in that branch of the profession. He never, indeed, quite forgave himself for an approach to duplicity ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... thanks.... Rachel left for Antwerp this evening, to meet her mother and sister, and I returned to my room, lonesome enough. Sunday I lunched with Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. McLaren. I had calls from three factory-women, who told a sad story of the impossibility of getting even a dollar ahead by the most frugal and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... beast with a stone, although his efforts had the temporary effect of frightening it. Gradually, however, it grew bolder, and was restrained from springing upon him only, as it seemed, by some sixth sense which warned it of the impossibility of getting out of the fissure after once getting in. Baffled and furious, the lion sniffed and prowled about the rim of the hole until the ranchman began to think it would ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... adventure with the escaped convict to her own present unhappiness. Troubles always seem at their worst at bedtime, and the memory of home rose up so strongly, that she began to come to the conclusion it would be an absolute impossibility ever to like The Priory in the least. A new difficulty which Patty mastered that evening was the art of crying in bed without making the slightest sound so as to betray her grief to the occupants of the other ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... see all the old and well remembered objects again; but it also gave him pleasure to find everything in its place as he had left it—even the very dust on the mouldings and cornices, which had remained undisturbed through the reign of Mrs. Margaret, from the absolute impossibility of reaching the lofty site of these depositions, was still there. Not an article of new furniture was added, while the old furniture looked more miserable and scanty, on account of some of the best pieces having been taken out ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]

... spoken of the general principles upon which the science and art of agriculture must be based, let me now direct your attention to some of those particulars between chemistry and agriculture, and demonstrate the impossibility of perfecting the important art of rearing food for man and animals, without a profound knowledge of ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... chamber Caroline, too, sat thinking—not altogether of the man she loved and who loved her. She thought of him, of course; but there was something else, an idea, a suspicion, which over and over again she dismissed as an utter impossibility, but which returned ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... could scarcely move. As I learned afterwards, a conversation had taken place about me while I slept, which rendered my obligations to Maramy still greater. He had reported to Barca Gana the state of his horse, and the impossibility of carrying me on, when the chief, irritated by his losses and defeat, as well as at my having refused his horse, by which means, he said, it had come by its death, replied, 'Then leave him behind. By the head of the Prophet! Believers enough have ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... Council before the President "that a Guardian of Public Power ought never to violate the law as otherwise he would be—" "a dishonest man," interposed the President. All these words and all these facts were notorious. The material and moral impossibility of the coup d'etat was manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly! To arrest the Representatives! What madness! As we have seen, Charras, who had long remained on his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of security was complete and unanimous. Nevertheless there ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... her a profound reverence and retired, taking with him the basket and the little dog Cabriole, which she refused to accept. All night long he sat sighing to himself, "How can I ever find a ring which she dropped into the river a month ago? She has set me an impossibility." ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... assaulted in his presence an insolent patrician; escaped to Asia in the habit of a private soldier; and yielded with a sigh to the authority of Bohemond, and the interest of the Christian cause. The best and most ostensible reason was the impossibility of passing the sea and accomplishing their vow, without the license and the vessels of Alexius; but they cherished a secret hope, that as soon as they trod the continent of Asia, their swords would obliterate their shame, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... There wouldn't have been time for a duel and a round of golf, in addition to the impossibility of playing golf immediately after a duel. No nerves could stand it. Besides, I asked one of their caddies. They had come straight from the tram to the club-house, and from the club-house to the first tee. They had not been alone for ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... I as to what Mr. Charles Wogan intended to propose, and because the King knew that what Mr. Wogan set his hand to was as good as done. You remember I threw such hindrances as I could in your way, and made much of the risks you must run, and the impossibility of your task. Now ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... indeed," answered I, with emphasis, remembering Titbottom, and the impossibility of looking ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... to one the oath which he had just uttered to the other, send them bouquets of the same sort, write to them at the same time, and then would institute a comparison between them. There was a third always present in his thoughts. The impossibility of possessing her seemed to him a justification of his perfidies, which were intensified by the fact that he had to practise them alternately; and the more he deceived, no matter which of the two, the fonder of him ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... of the species, is studied from the standpoint of the animal group more than from that of the environment. Consequently, the separation of species from each other is regarded as the outcome not only of a sheer physical impossibility of contact, but even more of other factors as differences in physical structure, in habits of life, and in the instincts of the animal groups. J. Arthur Thomson in his work on "Heredity" presents the following compact ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... devout driver may perform his devotions as he drives through life. To suppose that a horse could pull a wagon in Russia without this wooden arch, the utility of which no human eye but that of a Russian can see, is to suppose an impossibility. Now, the shafts being spread out so as to give the horse plenty of room at each side, it becomes necessary, since they are rather loosely hung on at the but-ends, to keep them from swaying. How do you think this is done? Nothing ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... the doctor, I say," continued Nick. "He could never have lifted that body to the top of the wall. There's a physical impossibility in the way of a belief that he ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... patent moral to this "Canterbury tale." It reads about as follows: Twenty-five years after the Canterbury persecution, its repetition would have been an impossibility. Twenty-five years after the Quitman persecution—or any other acts, in any southern state, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... before, never anything more. Julia, looking at him now with all the tragic sorrow of her life in her magnificent eyes, felt the utter impossibility of convincing him that this accusation on her part, and bravely boyish and honest confession on his, had any logical or possible connection with the momentous conversation that they were having to-night. Her heart recoiled in sick ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... really. Robert, who had been invited two or three times to other people's boxes, had proposed to return their kindness by taking a box himself at the opera this night, and entertaining two or three friends with galantine and champagne. Just as he and I were lamenting the impossibility of my going, on that very morning the wind changed, the air grew soft and mild, and he maintained that I might and should go. There was no time to get a domino of my own (Robert himself had a beautiful one made, and I am having it metamorphosed into a black silk gown for myself!) so I sent out ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... he was proposing some colossal impossibility, the observant novelist would naturally seize on, for Dickens was always on the lookout for exaggerations in human language and conduct. It was at Procter's table I heard Dickens describe a scene which ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... of any Prince of his age; his house had given more monarchs to the island than any other; his father had been acknowledged by the requisite majority; his courage, patriotism, and talents, were admittedly equal to the task. But he felt the utter impossibility of conciliating that fatal family pride, fed into extravagance by Bards and Senachies, which we have so often pointed out as the worst consequence of the Celtic system. He saw chiefs, proud of their lineage and their name, submit to serve a foreign ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... [2] The impossibility of keeping separate the designing and the writing of business, will be seen as the chapter progresses, therefore I shall ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... clear, from the advices we have, that the estate will be tied up in the courts for some time to come, possibly a year or two. From authoritative sources, we learn that the will is to be broken. The apparent impossibility of marriage between Lady Deppingham and Mr. Browne naturally throws our joint cause into jeopardy. There would be no controversy, of course, if the terms of the will could be carried out in that respect. The islanders understand ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... noticed several disadvantages under which the School was labouring, and consequent upon which it had declined. One of them was the narrow and local character of the Governing Body, but this had been recently amended by the Scheme of 1864. Another was the obvious one of the impossibility of having two masters, one nominally subordinate to the other, and yet each enjoying a freehold. Lastly, he pointed out that there was no effective supervision by the Governors over the boarding arrangements, ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... burst into a laugh. So convinced was he of the impossibility of my having got the letter to the Duke, even if what I had said of its abstraction were true, that he gathered assurance from what seemed to ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this gipsy ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... questionable points in this plan," said Mr. Thornton, " one is the impossibility, or at least the difficulty, of growing clover on this land. The other point is, How much of that 120 pounds of nitrogen returned in the clover is taken from the soil itself? I remember you figured 86 pounds of nitrogen in two tons of cowpea ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... think, be entirely disregarded. Were it not a purely technical matter, it might be easily demonstrated, with our knowledge of electro-chemistry, that such an arrangement as an electric primary battery driving a car is an impossibility. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... somewhere; not in a litany to her, for which there was no place, but at least in defence of her and of himself. It was Minnie, as usual, who stood ready to throw down the glove; Chatty being no more than a deeply interested spectator, and the mother drawing aside with that sense of impossibility which balks remonstrance, from the fray. Besides, Mrs. Warrender did not know, in the responsive excitement in herself which Theo's passion called forth, whether she wished to remonstrate or to put any hindrance ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... observation of the narrator she has either no occasion or is too profoundly moved to speak. The editor, who obviously had read the story, might have perceived that for himself. Apparently he did not, and I refrained from pointing out the impossibility to him because, since he did not venture to say that "the girl" did not live, I felt ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... law which he was trying to demonstrate had been pronounced an impossibility by professors of science, should weigh as nothing in the mind of any man who remembered how every great invention of the age had in turn been stamped "impossible" by those dogmatizers in their academical chairs, their books, and their reviews. Latterly (Mr. Minford confessed), ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... more stable and exclusive form of marriage. We grope uncertainly towards it: we fail atrociously. Yet we do not abandon an ideal which asks so much of human nature that human nature is continually invoked to prove its impossibility. ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden

... man? no! but you are so enthusiastic that you carry me away into the regions of impossibility! Come, let us return to the reality, which is sufficiently beautiful; leave our picks here, where we may find them another day, and let's take the road back to ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... By what right do we allege that demoniacal possession is an exploded figment and an impossibility? Do we know ourselves or our fellows so thoroughly as to be warranted in denying that deep down in the mysterious 'subliminal consciousness' there is a gate through which spiritual beings may come into contact with human personalities? He would be bold, to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... risen angrily to his feet. But the next moment the utter impossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral perception by even physical force hopelessly overcame him. It would only impress him with the effect of his own disturbing power, that to Ezekiel was equal to a proof of the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... caste in which she was relatively poor and artificially unhappy and ill-conditioned, is now, as the pretty wife of an art-critic, relatively rich, as well as pleasant, active, and in sound health. Her chief trouble, as far as I can judge, is the impossibility of shaking off her distinguished relatives, who furtively quit their abject splendor to drop in upon her for dinner and a little genuine human society much oftener than is convenient to poor Erskine. She has taken a patronizing fancy to her father, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... spectacle connected with eclipses of the Moon which must have a word of mention. I refer to the simultaneous visibility of the Sun and the Moon above the horizon, the Moon at the time being eclipsed. At the first blush of the thing this would seem to be an impossibility, remembering that it is a cardinal principle of eclipses, both of the Sun and of the Moon, that the three bodies must be in the same straight line in order to constitute an eclipse. The anomalous spectacle just referred to is simply the result of the refraction ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... our cockney newspapers to talk of defending Canada at all hazards. It would be just as possible for the United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England as for us to enable Canada to contend against the United States. It is simply an impossibility. We must not forget that the only serious danger of a quarrel between these two neighbours arises from the connection of Canada with this country. In my opinion it is for the interest of both that we should, as speedily as possible, sever the political thread by which we are, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... expressions of refined sentiment, and delicate emotion; and the grossest sensuality is exhibited in conjunction with the most gentle and generous affections. They who have not learned from experience, the impossibility of such an union, are apt to be captivated by its alluring exterior. They are seduced by their own ignorance and sensibility; and become familiar with the demon, for the sake of the radiant angel to whom he has been linked by the malignant artifice ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... which are destitute of it. The production of this sound, as above described, will be obvious to the reader if he will pronounce the word my, and will attend to the position of the lips when he begins to utter the word. Let him attempt to say my, without closing the lips, and the impossibility of doing so will be apparent. The production of the sound is therefore mechanical and local; and the number of sounds to be produced by the organ fixed and limited, therefore, by Nature herself. The very limited number of possible sounds may be guessed by the fact that of sounds produced ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... went far to convince Josephine: for her own heart supported them. She went from her solid objections to untenable ones—a great point gained. She urged the difficulty, the impossibility of a secret marriage. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... to get the combined quota which they have paid for, when in reality they do not even get any one thing. It is the alert eye which can go over three rings and two stages at once and enjoy the pattern of each of them. It is a physical impossibility really. ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... independence of the knights. On the refusal of Russia to accept this position, Naples appeared to be the next best alternative, but it was eventually agreed to substitute for the guarantee of a third power the obviously futile guarantee of all the powers. Neither party foresaw that the impossibility of obtaining such a guarantee was destined to leave the whole clause about Malta inoperative. After much dispute over the future constitution of the order, France proposed to obviate the chief source of difficulty by the demolition ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... the night, but were driven back with considerable loss. The failure of this attempt damped their resolution, and some of the less courageous even murmured against an exploit beset with difficulties, which it appeared next to an impossibility to surmount. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... whosoever did attempt to gain the ascent, must march his men one by one. Captain Morgan spent two days before he arrived at this little island, whence he designed to proceed to the mountain where the governor was posted, had he not been told of the impossibility of ascent, not only for the narrowness of the way, but because the governor was well provided with all sorts of ammunition: beside, there was fallen a huge rain, whereby all the pirates' baggage and powder was wet. By this ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... much light on the reasons which have so often caused art to be separated from the theoretic and confounded with the practical activity. The most celebrated of these confusions are those formulated about the relativity of tastes and of the impossibility of reproducing, tasting, and correctly judging the art of the past, and in general the art of others. A life lived, a feeling felt, a volition willed, are certainly impossible to reproduce, because nothing happens more than once, and my situation at the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... a constrained voice, for he felt the impossibility of standing out much longer against her. Louise caught the note of yielding, and taking his hand in hers, laid ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... had uncovered. The great, jagged piece, so long missing, was suddenly plopped right down into the middle of the puzzle, and now it didn't fit. There were still holes, holes that obscured the picture and twisted it into a nightmarish impossibility. He snapped the telephone switch, tried three numbers without any success, and finally reached the fourth. He heard Dr. Prex's ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse

... thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any new artistic scheme. Only recently I had had proofs of the impossibility of making my art intelligible to the public, and all this deterred me from beginning new dramatic works. Indeed, I thought everything was at an end with my artistic creativeness. From this state of mental dejection I was raised by a friend. By the most evident and undeniable proofs ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... if I left Egypt now—at once—and saw her no more?" And then he laughed scornfully at the impossibility proposed. "Leave Egypt!" he muttered, "I might as well leave the world altogether! She would draw me back with those sweet wild eyes of hers,—she would drag me from the uttermost parts of the earth to fall at ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... disabilities of sex in relation to the suffrage—the difficulties in the way of jury duty, police duty, and office-holding—and draws the conclusion that the fulfilment of such necessary work of the voting citizen is practically an impossibility for woman, and has been found to be ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... received, and appreciated, even if the succeeding Number bears no proof of it. He is convinced that the want of specific acknowledgment will only be felt by those who have no idea of the labour and difficulty attendant on the hurried management of such a work, and of the impossibility of sometimes giving an explanation, when there really is one which would quite satisfy the writer, for the delay or non-insertion of his communication. Correspondents in such cases have no reason, and if they ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various

... burned to the ground and his large, handsome library utterly lost. With heroic spirit at a time when, as Lanier said of him, "the war of secession had left the South in a condition which appeared to render an exclusively literary life a hopeless impossibility, he immured himself in the woods of Georgia and gave himself wholly to his pen." When Simms visited him here in 1866, the poet had for supplies "a box of hard tack, two sides of bacon, and fourscore, more or less, of smoked herring, a frying-pan ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... upon his breast, and frequently smiting his brow, spent two hours in pacing the floor with great strides. It is a touching picture; but its pathos becomes somewhat embarrassing when you enter the cell, and see the impossibility of taking more than three generous paces without turning. When Byron issued forth, after this exercise, he said (still according to Valery) to the custodian: "I thank thee, good man! The thoughts of Tasso are now all in my mind and heart." "A short time after his ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... own; for while I flattered myself that my heart was untouched save by the emotion of a warm friendship, I could not dismiss the conviction that his feeling for me was rapidly approaching the point at which friendship becomes an impossibility. I must go, and immediately. It was foolish and culpable of me to have stayed so long. A girl in the first blush of maidenhood might excuse herself on the score of not recognizing the signs of a more than Platonic ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... would take him away from Mary, with whom—when out of the inspiring influence of her buoyant hopefulness—he knew marriage to be utterly impossible; and second, admitting and facing that impossibility, he might find at least partial relief from his heartache in the stirring events and adventures of that faraway land of monsters, dragons, savages and gold. The possibility lay in the gold, and a very faintly burning flame of hope held out the still more faintly glimmering ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... his head. A few months ago, it was possible he could have done that, but even then, he wouldn't have. And now, with the mental communicators in use, it would be a flat impossibility. The trap would be as obvious to Bond as it had been to him. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips against ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

... which nature contradicts at every moment. To recognize the necessity of a religion, the necessity of authority, and then to leave to subjects the right to deny religion, attack its worship, oppose the exercise of power by public expression communicable and communicated by thought, was an impossibility which the Catholics of the sixteenth century would ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future. We could know them only if causality were an inner necessity like that of logical inference.—The connexion between knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity. ('A ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein

... neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed? That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were played you, all which you have related to us ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... railroad hands, who were listening closely to Homos, and one of them sang out to the professor: "Can't you wait and let the first man finish?" and another yelled: "Put him out!" and then they all laughed with a humorous perception of the impossibility of literally ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... that the men had to climb on their hands and knees, sometimes those below pushed their comrades up and were in turn assisted by them to climb. The roar of musketry was unceasing. It seemed to be an impossibility for any man to reach the top unscathed, and yet there was no hesitation or wavering. Numbers fell, but panting and determined the rest pressed on. The Rifles suffered most heavily, and out of the seventeen officers who ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... appreciate the tangled state of our Arab's mind on awakening under such peculiar circumstances, and, from the point of view of common sense and common experience, such an awakening would be an utter impossibility—fit only for fairy tales and the traditions of savage tribes. Yet, in our own day, here in civilized New York and London, similar cases have been recorded and studied by experts! Under peculiar circumstances, patients have gone to sleep one person and awakened ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... was beginning to express in uncompromising tones the conviction that the government must relinquish an onerous task, the impossibility of accomplishing which was becoming patent. It was even openly suggested that the Tuileries must combine with "Washington for the purpose of establishing in Mexico a form of government acceptable ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... ancient authors. What Rabelais suggested in jest for his giant, Milton adopted as a program for the school. In addition, in thoroughly characteristic modern English fashion, he makes careful provision for daily exercise and play. Aside, though, from its impossibility of accomplishment except by a superior few, Milton's plan is thoroughly representative of the new humanistic-realistic point of view-that is, that education should impart useful information, though the information as Milton ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... to his architects, and he himself attentively superintended his contractors and masons. He experienced all the annoyances incident to construction, delays in the work, disputes with the workmen, the worry of raising money and meeting payments, and the impossibility of obtaining exactly what he wished. He was impatient to take possession of his own home, but the completion of it was delayed from month to month; it was to have been ready for occupancy by November 30, 1837, yet on his return from Sardinia in June 1838, it was not yet finished. ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... usefulness. It is much more profitable than thinking self-destruction or the effort at self-destruction for that is an act which aims at an impossibility. You can destroy the body, but the you who suffers in mind and spirit will suffer still, and live still. You will only change your location from one state to another. You did not make yourself, you cannot unmake yourself. You can merely put ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... different kinds of glass, the colours can be extinguished, still leaving a residue of refraction, and he employed this residue in the construction of achromatic lenses—lenses yielding no colour—which Newton thought an impossibility. By setting a water-prism—water contained in a wedge-shaped vessel with glass sides (B, fig. 8)—in opposition to a wedge of glass (to the right of B), this point can be illustrated before you. We have first of all the position (dotted) of the unrefracted beam marked upon ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... way out of all puzzle and perplexity and hardness; it is the Lord's special way for each one, that we cannot foresee, and that we never know until it comes. Then we discern that there has never been impossibility; that all things are open before his eyes; and that there is no temptation,—no trying of us,—to which He will not provide some ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... honours dispensed there are bestowed in proportion to the industry and good conduct of those who receive them. If the offences of freshmen outside the walls be unvisited by the university from wariness in the offenders, or the impossibility of controlling them, they are certain to meet with a just estimation of their demerit here; and, as before noticed, this is perhaps the best mode of repressing them. The assistance derived by the industrious student from the university itself is invaluable. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... kept slowly turning round and round, and just then, by lifting his head up a little, he saw the mast-heads and sails of two junks, which were bearing close down upon them. There seemed now an impossibility of their escaping detection. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... towards the cap-it was a moral impossibility that she could fail to see it—yet she sank into her chair without word or sign. Mr. Selwyn, on the contrary, stood with the empty ice plate in his hand, staring at it in ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... on the Philosophical Stone, that we cannot prove the impossibility of obtaining it, but we can easily see the folly of those who employ their time and money in seeking for it. This price is too great to counterbalance the little probability of succeeding in it. However, it is still a bantling of modern chemistry, who has nodded very affectionately ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to help fairy mothers; fairy maidens marry ordinary men, or girls marry and live with fairy husbands. All such things may have happened and bear no such a priori marks of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through the air, and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... circumstances of my lot, formed a kind of intimacy, was so fierce in his nature as to have acquired the title of "Bloody" from his vile companions. I felt very much cast down the more I considered the subject and the impossibility of delivery, as it seemed to me—at least, for a long time to come. At last, in my feeling of utter helplessness, I prayed fervently to the Almighty that He would deliver me out of my miserable condition; and when I had done so I felt some degree ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... but latent reflection of hope, influenced me in desiring her to come here. Gentlemen, excuse me," said he, covering his face with his hands, "I am very wretched and unhappy—I cannot account for what has occurred; it looks like an impossibility, but it is true. Oh, if he were a man!—but, no, no, you all know how contemptible—what a dastardly scoundrel ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... maintain our physical safety by retiring within our continental boundaries—the Atlantic on the east, the Pacific on the west, Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. I illustrated the futility—the impossibility—of that idea in my message to the Congress last week. Obviously, a defense policy based on that is merely ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... of building vessels-of-war, and the difficulty, amounting even to impossibility, of procuring cannon for their armament, deterred the Colonies from equipping a naval force. All the energies of the revolutionists were directed towards organizing and equipping the army. The cause ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot



Words linked to "Impossibility" :   option, impossible, unattainableness, impossibleness, nonentity, choice, impossible action, inconceivableness, nonexistence, alternative, inconceivability, possibility



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