insurmountable QUOTES

1 " I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me 'Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid' - then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. "

― Douglas Adams

2 " It was a question of insurmountable proportions. A single word that held every fear he had ever had-and every wish he had ever made on those cursed stars. She needn't say more. In a single syllable, she had said more than he wanted to hear in an entire lifetime. "

― V.S. Carnes , Sand for Dreams

3 " Shifting uneasily, Caine cleared his throat, left to wonder why her eyes would make him so unbelievably uncomfortable now after all that had already passed between them these past few weeks.
“Caine?”
That would be why. It was a question of insurmountable proportions. A single word that held every fear he had ever had—and every wish he had ever made on those cursed stars. She needn’t say more. In a single syllable, she had said more than he wanted to hear in an entire lifetime. "

― V.S. Carnes

4 " So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the
loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's
snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely
changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to
play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the
end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off
behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday.
Leaving behind a feeling of insurmountable emptiness...
Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost.
Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can
disappear, melting together in a single, overlapping figure. And as
we live our lives we discover - drawing toward us the thin threads
attached to each - what has been lost. I closed my eyes and tried to
bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing them
closer, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their lives
are fleeting. "

― Haruki Murakami , Sputnik Sweetheart

5 " Boric, feeling dizzy and light-headed, shambled toward Randor’s corpse, which was still making an impressive effort to pump blood to Randor’s head. His head unfortunately lay some three feet away — an insurmountable distance for even the most robust circulatory system. "

― Robert Kroese , Disenchanted (Land of Dis, #1)

6 " Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind since 1832. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that so long as I alone believe it to be possible, it is virtually impossible. ... The scheme in question is the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. This has been thought of from the earliest historical times, and for that very reason is looked upon as impracticable. Geographical dictionaries inform us indeed that the project would have been executed long ago but for insurmountable obstacles. [On his inspiration for the Suez Canal.] "

― Ferdinand de Lesseps

7 " If a person cannot swim across the river, he must take the bridge. He is not afraid of the water or worried that he may drown. But he takes the bridge out of necessity. It is a fact. To fear or worry over necessities (over facts), stills the mind. The stagnant mind only focuses and refocuses on a single point, without peripheral vision—it ponders danger, but it does not prepare for it. The brave man is not bound immobile with caution or lost scouting the fog of hazard calculating insurmountable variables. His sight and sense is not hindered and he may confront danger upon its arrival. To be brave is not to be careless or headstrong, but to act without expectation. "

8 " Love is the most primal force in the universe. It inspires us, pulling us over otherwise insurmountable obstacles. Art is created to exalt it, children are born of it, and entire lives are devoted to seeking it out in the most unlikely places. "

― C. Robert Cargill , Dreams and Shadows (Dreams & Shadows #1)

9 " When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form -- or a species -- will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap. "

― Eckhart Tolle , A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

10 " There are people who know where they want to be, and also have a roadmap in their mind, about how to get there. But something stops them! They either keep waiting for better circumstances, or simply lack the courage to give up the comfort of a secure life. For them, the pursuit of their purpose is a risky proposition. Often, those are the same people that die with the weight of regrets. Those are the people who feel unfulfilled or unworthy at the end of their journey. They bury their dreams for the sake of a safe life, without ever venturing into the world of possibilities. But the truth is that if you risk nothing for the pursuit of your passion, you risk more. An even deeper reality is that there’s never a perfect time; the most ideal and opportune time is the time when YOU choose to begin your journey. Find courage to take the first step today. Your age, your pace, or your handicap doesn’t matter. Nothing is insurmountable if you have passion and persistence – your heart knows this. You simply have to convince your mind to play along. Find your moments of courage – the times when you feel strong, able, and energized. Tap those moments to launch yourself; the world beckons! "

― Manprit Kaur

11 " My breath caught fire and my heart leapt infinite beats within his proximity." Wreck me, tame me. The way you want it." I whispered my plea.His foggy grey eyes glinted with desire and lust. " I will" . The two words were my end as well as the beginning of something new and insurmountable between us. "

12 " In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life. "

― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

13 " Value those whose capabilities are insurmountable you yourself possess the same strength....there's NO value in clowns! Believe and overcome! "

14 " I need to dream.

I need to believe.

I need to know that I have some control in my life.

That if I work hard, that I will be rewarded.

That life is not arbitrary.

I need to believe that bad things happen to good people, for a greater reason.

That dedication, sacrifice, hard work, discipline are all worthy attributes that will eventually produce extraordinary results.

That if I live a certain lifestyle, that my family will be better for that.

That there is a direct link between my actions and my results.

That If I prepare properly that I can face the insurmountable foe and look him in the eye and say “Bring it on, I can take whatever you can dish out.”

I need to keep living in order to save my daughter from dying. "

― , 6 Minutes Wrestling With Life: (Every Breath Is Gold #1)

15 " Any man, you'll soon learn, has an insurmountable need to blame someone else when he is made to look a fool. "

― Julia Quinn , The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1)

16 " When you imagine yourself as a failure or as having insurmountable problems in your relationships or any part of your life, you think failure, act failure, and produce failure. "

― , The Laws of Love: Creating the Relationship of Your Dreams

17 " Often it isn’t the initiating trauma that creates seemingly insurmountable pain, but the lack of support after. "

― S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div. , Gift of the Dreamtime - Reader's Companion

18 " In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage. "

― Ian McEwan , Amsterdam

19 " If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. "

― Samuel Johnson , Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language

20 " The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural. "

― Alexis de Tocqueville , Democracy in America Volume 2

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