Whatever you can do…begin it!

2nd March 2023

On my first NLP course, one of the trainers, Willie Monteiro, gave us a handout with the following quotation:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. 

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.“

I have passed this quotation on to many people over the years because it is not only uplifting, but it also – in my experience – expresses something true about the way life works.

It seems that the Goethe Society of North America did not recognise the Goethe couplet and eventually discovered that the entire quotation comes from a book by William Hutchinson Murray entitled The Scottish Himalayan Expedition in which Murray details the first Scottish expedition in 1950 to the Kumaon range in the Himalayas between Tibet and western Nepal.

However, no-one has been able to identify the couplet from Goethe which Murray thought he was quoting – though the great man did express some similar sentiments. But perhaps that just shows that you don’t have to get everything right!

I hope you find the quotation helpful and inspiring.