Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing
Not Muhammad Ali — actually Aimee Lehto ScheweAimee Lehto ScheweAdvertising copywriter & creative director · wrote the line in 2004, at TBWA\Chiat\Day, for adidas
Muhammad Ali never said this. It is advertising copy: the opening line of a manifesto written in 2004 by copywriter Aimee Lehto (now Aimee Lehto Schewe) at TBWA\Chiat\Day to sell adidas on the “Impossible is Nothing” tagline — a line coined by her colleague Boyd Coyner. Ali starred in the campaign and the words were laid over his image, which is exactly how his name got welded to them.
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing” Aimee Lehto, adidas "Impossible is Nothing" campaign manifesto (2004). Not Muhammad Ali, who appeared in the ads but did not write or say the line.
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Muhammad Ali. Use the credit shown above instead.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Aimee Lehto Schewe — wrote the adidas "Impossible is Nothing" manifesto, 2004. Theme: "Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The actual source: a 2004 adidas ad
Work
adidas “Impossible is Nothing” campaign manifesto
Written by
Aimee Lehto (now Aimee Lehto Schewe), copywriter, TBWA\Chiat\Day, on the global adidas account for 180/TBWA
Earliest documented
adidas advertisement in Sports Illustrated, vol. 100, no. 5 — 9 February 2004, per Quote Investigator
Campaign
$50 million global brand relaunch launched February 2004, featuring Muhammad Ali, Laila Ali, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and others
Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.
The complete ~60-word ad manifesto
The famous quote is only the first sentence. The rest — including the tagline “Impossible is nothing,” which Quote Investigator credits to Boyd Coyner rather than Lehto — is usually trimmed away when the passage circulates as an Ali quote. The ad set the whole manifesto in capitals.
February 2004 — the origin. adidas launches a $50 million global campaign built by 180/TBWA around the tagline “Impossible is Nothing,” featuring Muhammad Ali among 22 athletes. Trade coverage of the launch ↗ records the budget, the agency partnership and Ali’s role. Quote Investigator’s earliest citation ↗ is an adidas ad in Sports Illustrated dated 9 February 2004.
The writer speaks. In a first-person account, Aimee Lehto Schewe writes “I know because I wrote it” ↗ — she was at TBWA\Chiat\Day on the global adidas account, the “big word small man” phrase came to her while brushing her teeth, and she credits Boyd Coyner with “Impossible is Nothing.”
This is 2004 advertising copy, so it is firmly in copyright in the United States — nothing published in 1931 or later has entered the public domain by age, and the frequent “anonymous inspirational quote” framing does not change that. Ownership specifically was not something we could confirm from a filing: campaign copy of this kind is normally work-for-hire belonging to the agency or client rather than the writer, so the practical rights holder is likely adidas and/or TBWA even though authorship is Lehto Schewe’s. Quoting the line for commentary, criticism or attribution — as this page does — is a different matter from reusing it commercially.
Fact-check
How the ad copy became an Ali quote
The line was printed over Muhammad Ali’s photograph in a global ad campaign. Everything that followed is what happens when words sit on a famous face long enough for the caption to be mistaken for the speaker.
✕
Early June 2016ESPN Ranked #1
Darren Rovell’s “Muhammad Ali’s 10 best quotes” ↗ placed the ad manifesto at number one — above “float like a butterfly” and above every line Ali actually said. Quote Investigator cites the ESPN list among the outlets that carried the line as Ali’s. (The article’s own timestamp reads 3 June 2016; Quote Investigator’s footnote dates it 6 June 2016.)
✕
Bernie Sanders campaign rallySusan Sarandon Recited as scripture
Sarandon delivered the manifesto from a podium, prefaced with “He said” — as Mediaite documented ↗, crediting Ali for words written to sell sportswear.
✕
Continuous, since at least the mid-2010sGoodreads and the quote-aggregator economy No source cited
The “big word” → “word” driftThe wording itself Mis-worded too
The 2004 ad read “IMPOSSIBLE IS JUST A BIG WORD THROWN AROUND BY SMALL MEN.” ESPN and many repeaters drop “big,” losing the big/small antithesis the copywriter built the sentence on — a variant Quote Investigator flags ↗. So the popular version misnames the author and mangles the line.
✓The words are Aimee Lehto’s, written in 2004 at TBWA\Chiat\Day to sell adidas a tagline that Boyd Coyner had coined — Wikiquote lists the line as misattributed to Ali ↗. Ali lent the campaign his face and his myth. He did not lend it this sentence.
Context
How a shoe ad became a saint’s scripture
In February 2004 adidas launched the largest brand campaign in its history — roughly $50 million, built by 180/TBWA, a partnership of Amsterdam’s 180 and San Francisco’s TBWA\Chiat\Day — around the tagline “Impossible is Nothing” ↗. Its emotional centre was Muhammad Ali: one spot had a young Ali joined on a morning run by a generation of athletes who came after him; another put him in the ring against his daughter Laila. The manifesto copy was superimposed over those images.
That layout did the damage. A viewer sees Ali’s face and Ali’s aura, and reads words about refusing the world you were given — words that sound exactly like something the man who renamed himself and refused the draft would say. The line is plausible, which is the whole engine of misattribution. When Ali died in June 2016, the quote detached from the ad entirely and was mourned as his own: ESPN ranked it his number-one quote ↗.
It is incredibly flattering that my words are believable as an Ali quote, but equally maddening to have my work not attributed to me. — Aimee Lehto Schewe, email to Quote Investigator ↗, 5 April 2017
Why this one is so hard to kill
The quote survives because every incentive favours it. Ali’s name makes the line shareable; Lehto’s name does not. Quote aggregators reprint it with no citation at all — Goodreads carries it under Ali’s name with over 1,200 likes ↗ and a footer conceding that its quotes “are not verified.”
There is also an irony worth naming. The manifesto is genuinely good writing — good enough to pass for one of the great talkers of the twentieth century. The misattribution is, in a backhanded way, the highest compliment the copy could receive, and the reason its author cannot collect on it.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Advertising copywriter & creative director · wrote the adidas “Impossible is Nothing” manifesto, 2004
Aimee Lehto Schewe is an advertising copywriter and creative director who, working as Aimee Lehto at TBWA\Chiat\Day on the global adidas account, wrote the manifesto that begins “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men.” By her own account the phrase arrived while she was brushing her teeth, and she handed the finished piece to her boss before lunch; it went on to sell adidas a $50 million global brand relaunch. She has since watched her words be quoted by celebrities and ranked by ESPN as Muhammad Ali’s single best line — “incredibly flattering that my words are believable as an Ali quote, but equally maddening to have my work not attributed to me,” she told Quote Investigator ↗ by email in April 2017.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Lehto, Aimee. adidas “Impossible is Nothing” campaign manifesto (advertising copy, written at TBWA\Chiat\Day for 180/TBWA), 2004. Earliest documented in an adidas advertisement, Sports Illustrated 100, no. 5 (February 9, 2004), as cited in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Impossible Is Just a Big Word Thrown Around by Small Men . . . Impossible Is Temporary. Impossible Is Nothing,” November 28, 2017.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/impossible-is-just-a-big-word-thrown-around-by-small-men