奧裏森·馬登/Orison Marden
"I can't! It is impossible!" said a lieutenant to Alexander, after failing to take a rock-crested fortress.
"Be gone!" thundered the great Macedonian, "there is nothing impossible to him who will try." and at the head of a phalanx he swept the foe from the strong hold.
"You can only half will," Suvorov would say to people who failed. "I don't know," "I can't," and "impossible" he would not listen to. "Learn!" "Do!" "Try!" he would exclaim.
Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh University, was so fragile that no one thought he ever could amount to much; but he became a noted scholar in spite of discouragements which would have daunted most men of the strongest constitutions. Disaster, amputation of one foot, consumption—no, thing could shake his imperious will. Death itself seemed to stand aghast before that mighty resolution, hesitating to take possession of the body after all else had fled.
At fifty-five years of age, Sir Walter Scott owed more than six hundred thousand dollars. He determined that every dollar should be paid. This iron resolution gave confidence and inspiration to the other faculties and functions of the body and brain. Every nerve and Fibre said: "The debt must be paid!" Every drop of blood caught the inspiration and rushed to the brain to add its weight of force to the power which wielded the pen. And the debt was paid. In his diary he wrote: "I have suffered terribly and often wished that I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it out if I can."
"Is there one whom difficulties dishearten?" asked John Hunter. "He will do little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of a man never fails."
在攻擊敵軍要塞的戰爭失敗後，一位陸軍中尉這樣對亞曆山大說：“我不能！根本不可能！”