Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Impossibility
You cannot make a crab walk straight.
Aristophanes—Pax. 1083.
It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.
Carlyle—French Revolution. Pt. III. Bk. III. Ch. X.
And what’s impossible, can’t be,
And never, never comes to pass.
Geo. Colman (The Younger)—Broad Grins. The Maid of the Moor.
Hope not for impossibilities.
Fuller—The Holy and Profane States. Of Expecting Preferment. Maxim I.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Samuel Johnson—Rasselas. Ch. XII.
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.
Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.
R. B. Sheridan—The Critic. Act II. Sc. 1.
Certum est quia impossibile est.
The fact is certain because it is impossible.
Tertullian—De Carne Christi. Ch. V. Pt. 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.
John Walcot—Lord B. and his Notions.