Quotes About Possibilities

We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.

A good rule of thumb is 'Biology enables, culture forbids.' Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It's culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others.

So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we can imagine.

The heated debates about Homo sapiens' 'natural way of life' miss the main point. Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasn't been a single natural way of life for Sapiens. There are only cultural choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities.

Even if you don't know how to cash in on the data today, it is worth having it because it might hold the key to controlling and shaping life in the future.

Though historians occasionally try their hand at prophecy (without notable success), the study of history aims above all to make us aware of possibilities we don't normally consider. Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.

How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is biology enables, culture forbids. Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It's culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others.

Estudiamos historia no para conocer el futuro, sino para ampliar nuestros horizontes, para comprender que nuestra situación actual no es natural ni inevitable y que, en consecuencia, tenemos ante nosotros muchas más posibilidades de las que imaginamos.

Science is not just about predicting the future, though. Scholars in all fields often seek to broaden our horizons, thereby opening before us new and unknown futures. This is especially true of history. Though historians occasionally try their hand at prophecy (without notable success), the study of history aims above all to make us aware of possibilities we don't normally consider. Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.

History is not deterministic. It is not a means for making accurate predictions. Our present situation was neither natural nor inevitable, and we have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.

It is particularly important to stress that possibilities which seem very unlikely to contemporaries often get realised. (p. 266)

Studying history aims to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine. By observing the accidental chain of events that led us here, we realise how our very thoughts and dreams took shape – and we can begin to think and dream differently. Studying history will not tell us what to choose, but at least it gives us more options.

For another thing, there's so much they don't know. And not knowing things makes them know lots of other things grownups can't know. That sounds confusing and it is. But look at it this way. Every time you teach a kid something, you teach him a hundred things that are impossible because that one thing is so. By the time we grow up, our world is so hedged around by impossibilities that it's a wonder we ever try anything new.

Human history is littered with might-have-beens.

Maybe that's the point: he was just a typical guy in a typical place, and he made choices, and each choice changed him, and each change began to close off other possibilities, seal shut other rooms, exclude other people he might become, one by one, until he could no longer be anything but what he was.

A hero's talent lies latent within the self. It sleeps within him as seeds of possibilities. When discovered and nurtured, the seeds grow and flower. This flowering of his talent is a hero's true vocation.

Leaders search very deep for their identity. A great identity yields great possibilities in life. A great identity gives greater action choices. A search for our true identity is a kind of talent search within our own selves. There are talents that are latent. They sleep within us as seeds of possibilities. When we discover and nurture these seeds they grow and flower. This flowering is a leader's true vocation.

Hope is the whisper of our heart about the possibilities of our lives.

We all have alternate lives we might have lived had we made different decisions, including decisions about whom to marry. I

We enter into each moment holding hands with a future composed of infinite possibilities and a past composed of infinite realities.

Quantum theory has reached the point where the source of all matter and energy is a vacuum, a nothingness that contains all the possibilities of everything that has ever existed or could exist. These possibilities then emerge as probabilities before "collapsing" into localized quanta, manifesting as the particles in space and time that

You and I are essentially infinite choice makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling and action that you experience.

The universe has no restrictions. You place restrictions on the universe with your expectations.