Top 100 Cannot Be Done Quotes
#1. Being used now, in order to force slavery on to Kansas; for it cannot be done in any other way. [Sensation.] The
Abraham Lincoln
#2. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.
William Kingdon Clifford
#3. This is the nature of love." Vashet said. "To attempt to describe it will drive a woman mad. This is what keeps poets scribbling endlessly away. If one could pin it to paper all complete, the others would lay down their pens. But it cannot be done.
Patrick Rothfuss
#4. You cannot escape so easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time.
Robert Jordan
#5. Motherhood cannot finally be delegated. Breast-feeding may succumb to the bottle; cuddling, fondling, and paediatric visits may also be done by fathers ... but when a child needs a mother to talk to, nobody else but a mother will do.
Erica Jong
#6. It is the sort of suffering that cannot be done justice with words. I can say only this - that I suspect it is an anguish from which one never recovers. A walking death.
Seth Grahame-Smith
#7. Writing cannot be done in a state of desirelessness,
Janet Malcolm
#8. It cannot be done all at once. To overpower vertigo - the keeper of the abyss- one must tame it, cautiously.
Philippe Petit
#9. Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#10. This is my first term. I was told it was going to be an exciting term, and a lot of things would be done, and I cannot think about something more exciting than save Social Security.
Virginia Foxx
#11. And he began to understand what a wild game we play in life; he began to understand that a thing once done cannot be undone nor changed by saying I am sorry!
Robert Louis Stevenson
#12. The simple fact that something has not been done, is no proof that it cannot be.
Iain Pears
#13. Officers have been trying for hundreds of years to outsmart soldiers and have still not learned that it cannot be done. We can always count on the native ingenuity of the American GI to save us from ourselves, and to win wars.
Colin Powell
#14. Today's wars are about oil. But alternate energies exist now - solar, wind - for every important energy-using activity in our lives. The only human work that cannot be done without oil is war.
Grace Paley
#15. Homo voluntatis cannot explain why some things that can be done should not be done.
George Weigel
#16. If we go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany - look, we saw it in Britain. Neville Chamberlain told the British people: Accept the Nazis. Yes, they will dominate the continent of Europe, but that is not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We cannot possibly stand against them.
Ted Cruz
#17. You cannot do everything by yourself, you need to learn how to delegate responsibility and trust people that everything will be done on time and with highest quality
Sunday Adelaja
#18. The work cannot be done without those who are willing to go out.
Ross Paterson
#19. In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done, quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.
Elbert Hubbard
#20. Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape in the comer does not reappear in his tale as a moving object. There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law.
H.P. Lovecraft
#21. We want you to be ready with your personal storehouses filled with at least a year's supply. You don't argue why it cannot be done; you just plan to organize and get it done.
Spencer W. Kimball
#22. Those who say it cannot be done should not get in the way of those doing it.
Richard Whittle
#23. Love: that which cannot be done without; wish always to be with, be part of, belong to, know intimately inside and out, entirely, WHOLE-LY, for ever and ever amen.
Shining bright words in amazing patterns of endless variety. Drawing of the inside of my head.
pg. 108
Aidan Chambers
#24. I cannot pretend that I regard this with favor, but the purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.
- Oromis
Christopher Paolini
#25. If someone tells you something cannot be done;
it's just their way of saying they cannot do it
Shayan Italia
#26. We cannot eradicate global drug markets, but we can certainly regulate them as we have done with alcohol and tobacco markets. Drug abuse, alcoholism and tobacco should be treated as public health problems, not criminal justice issues.
Otto Perez Molina
#27. Grace does not make sense. It's not supposed to make sense. Grace cannot be calculated or formulated, earned or even rewarded for a job well done. Grace is a gift, not a salary.
Michelle DeRusha
#28. With aging comes physical and emotional challenge. We cannot seem to get as much done in an hour as we did in youth. And it is harder to be patient with others, and they seem more demanding.
Henry B. Eyring
#29. At all events, let no one claim that because an abuse cannot be done away with, without inconvenience to those who profit by it, what has been suffered to exist for a time should be allowed to exist forever.
Frederic Bastiat
#30. There's always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned.
Spike Lee
#31. Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.
James Fenton
#32. One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one's mind.
Ella Maillart
#34. God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God.
Martin Luther
#35. The great Islamic nation cannot ... be indifferent and remain silent on the injustice done to you. The Islamic nation is required to assist you in any way it can.
Ali Khamenei
#36. What you have done to this point cannot be undone. What you do next ... It is still unwritten.
Mitch Albom
#37. You cannot simply tap your creative nature once and then expect to be done with it. It is a lifelong process: a continual commitment to being open to possibility, trusting your instincts, experimenting, taking risks, and revising.
Fran Sorin
#38. Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#39. You need to realize there will always be beliefs that seek to limit and others that seek to stretch you to your highest potential. Just because you cannot see or do something, does not mean it is not there or cannot be done.
Archibald Marwizi
#40. It's not records I chase, it's self-improvement. And that cannot be done by taking it easy.
Chrissie Wellington
#41. Artists cannot be micro-managed. We can take heart that everything we do is different from the last thing we did - or indeed everything that's ever been done. That knowledge is the key to sound mentoring.
Robert Genn
#42. To succeed in the digital realm, technology has to provide a strong disruptive element right from the start. If things cannot be done differently , a transition to digital is not going to be compelling enough for a wide enough adoption to create sustainability.
David Amerland
#43. I could never say in the morning, "I have a headache and cannot do thus and so". Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#44. You cannot know if you will be successful or not. You can only prepare for battle and it must be done with all of your heart and with all of your consciousness. In that manner, you will have an edge.
Sun Tzu
#46. A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. By contrast, a woman's presence ... defines what can and cannot be done to her.
John Berger
#47. Pity those who cannot say: Thy will be done not mine, today.
Elaine A. Cannon
#48. There is nothing the state can do, and which society needs done, that cannot be done far better by the market.
Llewellyn Rockwell
#49. May the peace of God be with you," she says, her voice low, "even in the midst of trouble."
"Why would it?" I say softly, so no one else can hear. "After all I've done ... "
"It isn't about you," she says. "It is a gift. You cannot earn it, or it ceases to be a gift.
Veronica Roth
#50. I think we're seeing that the way we've done parenting cannot be sustainable in this generation, for sure.
Shefali Tsabary
#51. Healing cannot be done by settling a score.
Alice Walker
#52. All handling by IPCC of the Sea Level questions have been done in a way that cannot be accepted and that certainly not concur with modern knowledge of the mode and mechanism of sea level changes.
Nils-Axel Morner
#53. An explanation of an old man's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all hallmarks of the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they what it was to be young ... and I seem to have forgotten lately ...
J.K. Rowling
#54. True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.
Desmond Tutu
#55. There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?
Sophocles
#59. What harm is done by that commonplace word? What distinctions will not, cannot be drawn where enemy holds sway? Is the concept "enemy" the enemy of clear thought, therefore of justice? What is gained by its invocation? Perhaps as important, what is lost?
John Jeremiah Sullivan
#60. We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one's big and second toes; there's work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving.
Robert Musil
#61. Love is a delicate plant that needs constant tending and nurturing, and this cannot be done by snorting at the adored object like a gas explosion and calling her friends lice.
P.G. Wodehouse
#62. Meat is necessary when there is hard physical work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or when edible plants cannot be found ... Animal flesh provides all the substances we need, both for the intensive working of our organism and for maintaining a normal temperature in cold climates.
G.I. Gurdjieff
#63. After Proust, there are certain things that simply cannot be done again. He marks off for you the boundaries of your talent.
Francoise Sagan
#64. One of the main weaknesses of mankind is the average man's familiarity with the word "impossible." He knows all the rules which will NOT work. He knows all the things which CANNOT be done.
Napoleon Hill
#65. You cannot be the leader of the free world and sit on the sidelines and tweet and think you're going to get the job done.
Kevin McCarthy
#66. Love, Miss Halliday, is a delicate plant. It needs tending, nurturing, assiduous fostering. This cannot be done by throwing the breakfast bacon at a husband's head.
P.G. Wodehouse
#67. If you are honest with yourself and can look into a mirror and believe that you have given 100 percent, you should feel proud. If you cannot, then there is more work to be done.
John Havlicek
#68. There is no task in life that cannot be done for God's glory.
Tim Challies
#69. Great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.
Christiaan Huygens
#70. By being impatient, matters are damaged and great works cannot be done
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
#71. Once you've been first, it cannot be done again. Not by you, not by anyone else.
Buzz Aldrin
#72. Mister Lipwig, the world lives between those who say it cannot be done and those who say that it can. And in my experience, those who say that it can be done are usually telling the truth. It's just a matter of thinking creatively.
Terry Pratchett
#73. In a democracy, the one thing that cannot be done is to destroy its trust, its hope, its idealism.
Teresa Heinz
#74. Grieving needs space, and it needs so much time. And it needs to be done; it cannot be trodden round or not looked in the eye.
Susan Fletcher
#75. The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders.
Isaac Asimov
#76. What is done is done; and the cracked egg cannot be cured.
Howard Pyle
#77. It is a mistake to say something cannot be done simply because you don't know how to do it.
Terry Goodkind
#78. God does not command what cannot be done, but admonishes us to do what is in our power, and to pray for what is not.
Matthew Henry
#79. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind.
Clara Barton
#80. I must frankly admit that ... I should probably lose all interest in life and would rather not be a German at all. But since, thank the Lord, this cannot be done, we have no need to be surprised that the health, unspoiled people avoid 'bourgeois mass meetings' as the devil holy water.
Adolf Hitler
#81. For when a box is shut, you cannot tell what it might contain, so you might as well say it contains everything, because, really, it could contain anything, see? But when you open it, you affect what is inside. Observing something changes it, that's a law, nothing to be done.
Catherynne M Valente
#82. The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.
Arnold Palmer
#83. Remember: People who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people, are strictly average or mediocre at best in terms of accomplishment.
David J. Schwartz
#84. What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.
Anne Frank
#85. It is not important what can or cannot be done. What is important is what people will or will not believe can be done.
Isaac Asimov
#86. Traditions cannot themselves, simply with their own powers, do what needs to be done. These earlier experiences and accomplishments were dealing with other issues, providing guidance for different worlds than the world of the early twenty-first century.
Thomas Berry
#87. What is the use of talking of one's mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful.
Swami Vivekananda
#88. You can say things which cannot be done. This is elementary. The trick is to keep attention focused on what is said and not on what can be done.
Frank Herbert
#89. When a great poet has lived, certain things have been done once for all, and cannot be achieved again.
T. S. Eliot
#90. We live of novelty in science. So when you do something new, you have to overcome certain beliefs that it cannot be done, that it's not interesting and so on.
Heinrich Rohrer
#91. People who claim something cannot be done should not get in the way of the ones who are doing it.
Melissa McPhail
#92. People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
George Bernard Shaw
#93. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.
Tsunetomo Yamamoto
#94. A common misconception about how things such as space shuttles come to be is that engineers simply apply the theories and equations of science. But this cannot be done until the new thing-to-be is conceived in the engineer's mind's eye. Rather than following from science, engineered things lead it.
Henry Petroski
#95. A failed structure provides a counterexample to a hypothesis and shows us incontrovertibly what cannot be done, while a structure that stands without incident often conceals whatever lessons or caveats it might hold for the next generation of engineers.
Henry Petroski
#96. All candidate moves should be identified at once and listed in one's head. This job cannot be done piecemeal, by first examining one move and then look at another.
Alexander Kotov
#97. I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight: wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps.
Horatio Nelson
#98. India needs a change - it cannot be ruled by 80-year-olds and by people who have done nothing for it.
Arjun Rampal
#99. The past is over and done and cannot be changed. This is the only moment we can experience.
Louise Hay
#100. What can not be overcome in prayer? Answer me! What cannot be done by the hand of the Almighty? Answer me! What can be done by your feeble arms!? ANSWER ME! He can take down the iron curtain in a day, He CAN convert a nation in an hour. Call upon Him, believe Him.
Paul Washer
