Quotations about:
plausibility
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The difference between life and the movies is that a script needs to make sense, and life doesn’t.
With a view to poetry, an impossible thing that is believable is preferable to an unbelievable thing that is possible.
[πρός τε γὰρ τὴν ποίησιν αἱρετώτερον πιθανὸν ἀδύνατον ἢ ἀπίθανον καὶ δυνατόν.]
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Poetics [Περὶ ποιητικῆς, De Poetica], ch. 24 / 1461b.11 (c. 335 BC) [tr. Sachs (2006)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Alternate translations:
- "The poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities." [tr. Butcher (1895)]
- "A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility." [tr. Bywater (1909)]
- "You should prefer a plausible impossibility to an unconvincing possibility." [tr. Margoliouth (1911)]
- "For poetic effect a convincing impossibility is preferable to that which is unconvincing though possible." [tr. Fyfe (1932)]
- "Probable impossibilities are preferable to implausible possibilities." [tr. Halliwell (1986)]
- "In relation to the needs of the composition, a believable impossibility is preferable to an unbelievable possibility." [tr. Janko (1987)]
- "With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible."
- "For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to have a rational thread running through it in order to be believable, whereas reality may be totally irrational.
Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
