OVERCOMING
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
—Rev. 2:7
4090 Impossible, Ltd.
A London film makes the impossible his business. When a restaurant owner came shopping for a genuine stagecoach to put outside his premises, the president of Impossible, Ltd., dug one up in an antique dealer’s shop for $700.
A newspaper columnist challenged the president of Impossible, David Whitehead, to come up with a half ton raisin-studded custard pudding. This may have been a first in the culinary trade, but two days after the challenge was issued, Whitehead had the pudding at the desk of the columnist.
Whitehead charges his clients the cost of the “Impossible” article plus an extra 10 percent. He also heads a club where, for a yearly membership fee, the customer can order an item and not be charged for the search.
4091 Michelangelo’s Initial Refusal
When Michelangelo was ordered to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel, he refused. He had never done any work of that kind, and said he could not do it. But he was told his refusal would not be accepted. When he discovered that there was no alternative without unpleasant consequences, he mixed his colors and went to work. And thus came into being the world’s finest painting.
There are few who realize what possibilities are locked up within them until some necessity compels them to attempt something they have always considered impossible.
—Friendly Chat
4092 Engineer Won’t Quit
Engineers were called in to give their ideas on a possible railroad through the Andes Mountains. These men proclaimed the job as an impossible one. Then American engineers were called in to give their opinions whether the railroad could follow along the side of the River Rimac. Even these intrepid engineers claimed that it could not be done. As a last resort, a Polish engineer named Ernest Malinowshi was called in. Malinowshi’s reputation as an engineer was well-known, but he was at that time in his sixtieth year, so the authorities feared to impose such a rigorous task on the man.
Malinowshi assured the representatives of the various countries interested that the job could be done, and in his sixtieth year he started the highest railroad in the world.
The railroad began to worm its way across the Andes from Peru with sixty-two tunnels and thirty bridges along its way. One tunnel ran 4,000 feet in length, 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. Twice, revolutions in some of the countries through which the railroad passed, held up construction. Once Malinowshi had to flee Peru and remain in exile for a time—but nothing deterred this aging Pole in completing the engineering feat that became one of the wonders of the world in 1880.
—Future
4093 Not A French Word
Napoleon proposed to cross the bridge at Lodi in the face of the Austrian batteries that swept it. “It is impossible,” said one of his officers, “that any men can force their way across that narrow bridge in the face of such an annihilating storm of balls as must be encountered.” “How impossible?” exclaimed Napoleon. “That word is not French.” He himself, bearing a standard, was the second across.
4094 Car Salesman Didn’t Know
Norval Hawkins, the first Ford sales manager, used to tell about a car salesman in South Dakota who was “too dumb to be afraid of tradition.”
“Back in those days,” said Hawkins, “people didn’t drive cars in the winter. They put them up on jacks. Consequently, dealers made no car sales. They just about shut up shop for half the year. But one small dealer in South Dakota kept sending in orders right through the winter. I went to see him. He was a big, awkward, gangling, farmerlike youngster who confessed that he just didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to sell cars in the winter time!”
This gave Hawkins an idea. He lashed his dealer organization to keep after winter sales. Now, January is a peak month for motor sales.
—Maxwell Droke
4095 Impossible Takes Longer
Charles F. Kettering, the noted scientist and inventor, believed the easiest way to overcome defeat was to ignore completely the possibility of failure.
Once he was developing this theme in an address delivered at Denison University, Granville, Ohio. He told how he had once given a tough assignment to a young research worker at the General Motors laboratory. Just to see how he would react to a difficult problem, Mr. Kettering forbade him to examine notes on the subject that were filed in the library. These notes were written by expert research men and contained statistics to prove that the assignment was impossible. The young research worker did not know this, of course, so he went to work with confidence that he would succeed.
He did succeed, too. He didn’t know it couldn’t be done—so he did it.
—Good Business
4096 “Incurable” Disease
Charles Kettering, the famous research scientist, is impatient with people who speak of insurmountable obstacles. “It is like the doctors with their incurable diseases,” he says. “Did you ever stop to think what an incurable disease is? It is one the doctor doesn’t know how to cure.”
—Dutton
4097 Slide Rules Outlawed
When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I’d place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: “Leave slide rules here.” If I didn’t do that, I’d find some engineer reaching for his slide rule. Then he’d be on his feet saying, “Boss, you can’t do it.”
—Charles F. Kettering
4098 The Safety-Glass
When Henry Ford wanted safety-glass for one of his new models, he went to his tried and tested engineers for help. All 130 of them knew too many reasons why safety-glass could not be produced.
Finally, a young engineer, who knew no reason why it couldn’t be done, set to work and developed safety-glass.
4099 Improving The Light Bulb
Years ago new engineers in the lamp division of General Electric were assigned the impossible task, as a joke, of frosting bulbs on the inside. Each perspiring neophyte forgave the snickers greeting his failure. One day, however, Marvin Pipkin was initiated and he not only found a way to frost bulbs on the inside but developed an etching acid which gave minutely-rounded pits instead of sharp depressions, thus materially strengthening each bulb. No one had told him it couldn’t be done, and he took it so seriously that he did it.
—Harry Mckown
4100 Another Set Of Experts
Once David Ben-Gurion, Premier of Israel, was told that a certain desert development problem was insolvable. Even quantities of water would not provide the solution. The experts said so, and that seemed to be that. The Premier, however, took a more forceful approach. “Let’s look for another set of experts,” he suggested. The work went on.
—New York Times
4101 Sikorsky’s Helicopter
When Igor Sikorsky was a lad of twelve, his parents told him that competent authorities had already proved human flight impossible. Yet Sikorsky built the first helicopter. And in his American plant he posted this sign: “According to recognized aerotechnical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn’t know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway.”
—James Hastings
4102 Contradictory News
A New York evening paper on Saturday, May 21, 1927, the date of Lindbergh’s flight, contained on one of the inside pages an elaborate demonstration by some expert showing that Lindbergh could not make his goal. But the first page of that paper, printed later, had flung across the top of it in gigantic letters the news that Lindbergh had arrived.
4103 Elijah’s “Impossible” Feat
Some people raise their eyebrows when they read concerning Elijah the Prophet that “he girded up his loins, and ran before the chariot of Ahab to the entrance Jezreel!” (I Kings 18:46), a dis tance of some 30 miles.
But, according to “It Happened in Canada,” in 1865 “Peter Loler, a Maliseet Indian, angered by the refusal of a stagecoach driver to allow him to ride from Fredericton to Woodstock, New Brunswick, a distance of 60 miles, vowed to get there before the coach. Racing ahead of the four-horse teams (they had to be changed four times en route), Loler tore into Woodstock five minutes ahead of the coach.”
—Prairie Overcomer
4104 Founder Of Cunard Lines
It was Samuel Cunard, of Glasgow, who was determined to build ships. He had nothing but a penknife, and he whittled out little boats. He was a poor boy, but he was ever examining ships. He loved ships, and when he loved them enough his future was all settled. Sam Cunard was an unknown young man, when they asked him for the design of the first Cunard steamship.
—Current Anecdotes
4105 She Did What She Couldn’t
Rev. John Henry Jowett once told of a little graveyard beside a church in a small village where the memory of a devoted soul, who had spent herself freely and untiringly in the service of that small community, is enshrined in a brief and touching epitaph, “She has done what she couldn’t.”
—Eugene A. Hessel
4106 Epigram On Overcoming
• Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.
—Napoleon Hill
• There are three kinds of people in the world, the wills, the won’ts and the can’ts. The first accomplish everything; the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything.
• The greatest achievements of mankind have been accomplished by two types of men—those who were smart enough to know it could be done, and those too dumb to know it couldn’t.
—Oakland Tribune
See also: Endurance ; Perseverance.