Daily Inspiration Quote by George Colman

A neat little trap of logic dressed up as nursery rhyme: if something is impossible, it cannot happen, so stop waiting for it. Colman, a dramatist writing for the stage, knows the power of repetition and rhythm as persuasion. The line’s sing-song cadence and the double “never, never” feel almost comic, like an adult soothing a child. That’s the trick. Under the lullaby is a hard social instruction: accept the limits of your world, don’t waste desire on what the rules won’t allow.

Onstage, “impossible” is rarely just physics. It’s class barriers, social permission, the unseen architecture that decides who gets to marry whom, who gets forgiven, who gets to rise. By stating the obvious with such emphatic finality, the line becomes a mask for resignation. It’s not arguing; it’s closing the case. The phrasing “can’t be” and “comes to pass” leans into a moral universe where outcomes are pre-sorted, almost bureaucratically, into possible and not.

The subtext is also defensive. Calling something “impossible” often protects people from risk: you can’t be rejected if you pre-reject the dream. In comedy and light drama, that stance is bait. Audiences know the stage exists to make “never” wobble. So the line can function as a setup for reversal, exposing how often “impossible” really means “inconvenient to those in charge.” Colman’s economy here is theatrical: a couplet that sounds like wisdom, but smells like capitulation.