The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008), a science-fiction writer and futurist, formulated this line as part of his well-known “Three Laws” about technological progress and prediction. It appears in his 1962 essay “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination,” written in the early Space Age when rapid advances in rocketry, satellites, and computing were repeatedly overturning confident claims about what could not be done. Clarke’s point reflects both his professional interest in forecasting and his broader argument that experts often underestimate transformative change because they confuse current limitations with fundamental ones.

The quote argues that the boundary of “the possible” cannot be mapped from within accepted assumptions; it must be tested by attempts that initially look impossible. Clarke treats “impossible” not as a metaphysical absolute but as a label society applies to ideas beyond present knowledge, tools, or imagination. The line champions experimental risk-taking and intellectual audacity: progress comes from pushing past conventional constraints until reality itself—not habit, authority, or fear—sets the true limit. It also implies humility about prediction, since today’s impossibility may be tomorrow’s routine capability.

1) “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.”
2) “The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”
3) “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”