Samuel Smiles：Self-Help, Excerpt 171

“Where there is a will there is a way,” is an old and true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able, is almost to be so—to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself. Thus, earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savour of omnipotence. The strength of Suwarrow’s character lay in his power of willing, and, like most resolute persons, he preached it up as a system. “You can only half will,” he would say to people who failed. Like Richelieu and Napoleon, he would have the word “impossible” banished from the dictionary. “I don’t know,” “I can’t,” and “impossible,” were words which he detested above all others. “Learn! Do! Try!” he would exclaim. His biographer has said of him, that he furnished a remarkable illustration of what may be effected by the energetic development and exercise of faculties, the germs of which at least are in every human heart.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
Locator：Excerpt 171 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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