Literary notes about impracticable (AI summary)
The term "impracticable" appears across literature as a way to underline the gap between ideal plans or theories and their real-world application. In historical and political writings, it has been used to acknowledge that while an idea might be logically sound, it is often unworkable due to practical limitations—for example, Plato’s discussion of universal suffrage highlights its appeal yet impracticability in actual implementation ([1], [2]). Military and travel narratives further adapt the term to depict challenges imposed by nature or logistics, as when turbulent rivers or steep morasses render navigation or maneuvers unfeasible ([3], [4], [5]). At the same time, authors in fiction employ "impracticable" to characterize stubborn or absurd proposals—ranging from rejected social plans to eccentric personal schemes—thereby stressing the persistent tension between visionary ideals and the constraints of reality ([6], [7], [8]).
- Is this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable?
— from The Republic by Plato - “In order to be fair I admit that logically universal suffrage seems to me the only admissible principle, but it is impracticable.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - Now, when these medicines were required, the river was swollen, and so turbulent that its upward navigation was almost impracticable.
— from The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Robert Southey - We were now obliged to descend toward the shore, the crest becoming impracticable.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - Snow, tempest, impracticable roads, rocks, icebergs—nothing stops him.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - That was quite impracticable.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - Laurie was equally impracticable, and 270 would have had bonfires, sky-rockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott - The great effort seemed to be to bring out some new, impracticable, absurd, and ridiculous proposition, and the greater its absurdity the better.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I