There’s more to this quote, and I love the whole thing. Here it is:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. 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. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
From W.H. Murray’s The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)
I attributed the last two lines to W.H. Murray even though he himself attributes them to Goethe. The Goethe Society of North America says those lines come from a “very free” translation of Goethe’s Faust by John Asher in 1835–and not from Goethe himself.
