Impossibility

excuse for the nonperformance of duties under a contract, based on a change in circumstances, the nonoccurrence of which was an underlying assumption of the contract, that makes performance of the contract literally impossible

Impossibility is the state of something not being possible. In law, such a state of affairs is a defense to a breach of contract — for example, a contract to pay painters to paint a house may be voided as impossible if the house burns to the ground the day before the painters arrive.

It is easy to kill someone with a slash of a sword. It is hard to be impossible for others to cut down. ~ Yagyū Munenori

Quotes edit

  • It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.
    • Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, A History (1837), Part III, Book III, Chapter X.
  • It is easy to kill someone with a slash of a sword. It is hard to be impossible for others to cut down.
    • Yagyū Munenori, as quoted in Behold the Second Horseman (2005), by Joseph Lumpkin, p. 53.
  • Achieving impossibilities is the method of Economy of Evolution;
    ...all directed to a discovery of the Creativeness of the Universe!
    • B. B. Stoller, Biologizing the Universe (1983)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations edit

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 390
  • You cannot make a crab walk straight.
  • And what's impossible, can't be,
    And never, never comes to pass.
  • Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
  • Simul flare sorbereque haud facile
    Est: ego hic esse et illic simul, haud potui.
    • To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.
    • Plautus, Mostellaria, Act III. 2. 105.
  • Certum est quia impossibile est.
    • The fact is certain because it is impossible.
    • Tertullian, De Carne Christi, Chapter V, Part II. Called "Tertullian's rule of faith." Also given "Credo quia impossibile." I believe because it is impossible. Same idea in St. Augustine—Confessions, VI. 5. (7). Credo quia absurdum est. An anonymous rendering of the same.
  • You cannot make, my Lord, I fear, a velvet purse of a sow's ear.

External links edit

 
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about: