Sendecki’s Blog

William Hutchison Murray was one of a group of active Scottish mountain climbers. Murray did much of his most influential climbing in the period just before (and just after) World War II. The following passage occurs near the beginning of Murray’s The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951):

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. 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 favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have 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. Begin it now!”

—W.H. Murray Quotes

The above reference to Goethe is widely misattributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The “Goethe couplet” referred to here is from an extremely loose translation of Goethe’s Faust lines 214–30 made by John Anster in 1835.