“I'll find a way, or make one.”

The article below was published in 1939 by Dale Carnegie.

You'll remember I wrote I wanted to get a collection of mottoes which have been of the most help to you readers, and that I would pay $2 each for all I could use. I was overwhelmed by the responses, for I never realized before how many people had favorite mottoes, nor for how long a period of time they would continue to flow in.

Here's the motto I picked first - from Robert S. Phillips, 3895 Fredonia Drive, Hollywood, California. With it goes a little story. Mr. Phillips made a trip across the country, and back again, with my old friend, Aviator Captain Frank Hawks. Frank Hawks, who had won so many medals and cups that he didn't know what to do with them, was killed last summer in a crash when only sixty feet from the ground. Here, according to Mr. Phillips, was Frank Hawks own motto and the one which had inspired him to win enviable aviation honors.

“If you can't be a winner - then make the person ahead break a record.”

The second motto came from Carl S. Letts, Flushing, Michigan. His motto is the same as that of Admiral Peary who made seven unsuccessful expeditions to reach the North Pole. Then, after incredible hardships, on his eighth expedition, he reached a place called Fort Conger, which was not a fort at all, but just a little wooden building. His feet had been so badly frozen that ulcers had appeared. His men knew he would never march again. But Admiral Peary knew he would. Nothing would conquer that indomitable spirit. His men carried him in and placed him in a rude little cot, up there in that barren northland. The wind howled, the storm beat and tore at the little wooden building, which shook and trembled. But it was a shelter.

In a few days Admiral Peary was able to sit up. He called for a pencil, and a stub of a pencil was found. He took it, and wrote on the wall:

“I'll find a way, or make one.”

Well, he made one! The condition of his feet improved. No amputation was necessary, and eventually he set out on his quest. This time he won! He was the first man in the world to reach that coveted goal, the North Pole.

The third selection is from Karolin Sabo, the stenographer to Deputy Commissioner Edward Corsi of the Department of Welfare, New York City. This motto which stands on Commissioner Corsi’s desk, is also the one that inspired at Jane Addams, founder of the famous “Hull House,” Chicago. Here it is:

“Justice can only be worked out upon this earth by those who will not tolerate a wrong to the feeblest member of the community.”

The next one was sent by Mrs. Faye W. Bowman, Box 292, Woodward, Oklahoma:

“A man is worth two dollars a day up to his head. From his head up - well, that's up to him!”

Here is the motto of Will Durant who wrote “The Story of Philosophy”:

“Nothing so educates us as a shock.”

Like this article? Check out You Must Master Your Mind.

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