Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom

Written by Thomas à Kempis c. 1380 – 1 May 1471 · canon regular of the Congregation of Windesheim
Verified Free to reuse

It is a genuine line from The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 21 (“Of compunction of heart”), the devotional book Thomas à Kempis composed in Latin around 1418–1427. This exact English phrasing is Rev. William Benham’s translation of the Latin “Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur” — the thought is à Kempis’s, the Victorian diction is Benham’s.

Last verified 25 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom” Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom. — Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, ch. 21, trans. William Benham (Latin: "Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur"). Verified at Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Thomas à Kempis — German-Dutch canon regular & devotional writer. Theme: "Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Work
The Imitation of Christ (De Imitatione Christi)
Location
Book I, chapter 21 — “Of compunction of heart”
Composed
c. 1418–1427, in Medieval Latin
Translation
Rev. William Benham (1831–1910); his English version was in print by 1874 (Macmillan) and reissued in an illustrated edition by J. C. Nimmo, London, 1886

Happy is he who can cast away every cause of distraction and bring himself to the one purpose of holy compunction. Happy is he who putteth away from him whatsoever may stain or burden his conscience. Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom. If thou knowest how to let men alone, they will gladly let thee alone to do thine own works. Book I, ch. 21

Benham’s English. The Latin of the same passage, in The Latin Library’s text, reads: “Felix qui abjicere potest omne impedimentum distractionis, et ad unionem se redigere sanctæ compunctionis. Felix qui a se abdicat quidquid suam conscientiam maculare potest, vel gravare. Certa viriliter. Consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.” Punctuation is editorial and varies between editions — other Latin printings run the last two clauses together as “Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur,” the form quoted elsewhere on this page.

Digitized edition
Benham’s translation, London: J. C. Nimmo, 1886, at the Internet Archive
Read Benham’s Book I, Chapter XXI at Project Gutenberg

How we verified this

  • The Latin original sits in Caput 21, De compunctione cordis. The Latin text of Book I at The Latin Library ↗ punctuates it as two sentences — “Certa viriliter. Consuetudo consuetudine vincitur” — while a second Latin edition of the same chapter, with its surrounding sentences intact, prints “Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.” The pointing is editorial; the words are identical.
  • The familiar English — “Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom” — is Rev. William Benham’s wording, printed in Book I, Chapter XXI (“Of compunction of heart”) of the Project Gutenberg edition of his translation ↗.
  • Other translators render the same Latin quite differently — one widely circulated English version of Book 1, chapter 21 reads “Fight like a man. Habit is overcome by habit” (Catholic Archive ↗). The sentence you know depends on which translator you happened to read.
  • Benham’s version had a long print run: the Online Books Page ↗ lists it under Macmillan (1874), C. T. Dillingham (1884), J. C. Nimmo (1886), G. Routledge & Sons (1905) and P. F. Collier (1909).
Public domain

The Latin original was composed c. 1418–1427 and has been in the public domain for centuries. The English wording quoted here is William Benham’s translation, in print by 1874 and reissued through 1909 — all well before the 1931 U.S. cutoff, so this rendering is public domain too. A modern translation of the same Latin sentence would not be: post-1930 English versions of the Imitation are separately copyrightable works.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What people get wrong

The line itself is genuine, but two things around it are routinely garbled — who wrote the book it comes from, and whose English you are actually quoting.

Giovanni Gersen, abbot of Saint Etienne de Verceil Long-running dispute

The Imitation of Christ circulated anonymously, and Italian Benedictines pressed a claim for Gersen, placing the work around 1250 — roughly two centuries before à Kempis. Wikipedia’s account of the authorship controversy ↗ notes that modern scholars nonetheless accept à Kempis, on the strength of contemporary manuscripts bearing his name.

Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris Long-running dispute

French scholars advanced Gerson as the author; other names floated over the centuries included Bonaventure, Bernard of Clairvaux, Henri Kalkar and Ludolph of Saxony, and some critics argued the book was an impersonal compilation of medieval mystics rather than one man’s work (The Imitation of Christ ↗).

Rev. William Benham (1831–1910), translator Translator’s English

“Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom” is Benham’s Victorian English, not a sentence à Kempis wrote. He wrote Latin: “Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur.” Quote Investigator makes the same point about another line from this book, tracking how far apart its translators land ↗.

Thomas à Kempis wrote the thought, in Latin, in Book I, chapter 21 of The Imitation of Christ; the sentence in English is William Benham’s translation ↗. Both are true at once, and quoting the second as à Kempis’s exact words is the small, common slip.

Context

Why it mattered

Chapter 21 of Book I is about compunctio cordis — the sting of conscience that the Modern Devotion movement treated as the engine of self-reform. À Kempis was writing for novices at Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle, where he had entered in 1406 and served as sub-prior from 1429, and the chapter reads less like a sermon than like instructions for men trying to change how they actually behave day to day.

That is what gives the line its unsentimental force. He does not tell the reader to resolve harder or feel worse; he tells him that a habit is displaced by another habit, and that the work is a fight. It is practical monastic psychology, and it is the same principle every modern habit-formation book restates.

A habit is not argued away. It is replaced.

Read the full story

The book was written as four booklets and spread with extraordinary speed for the era: roughly 750 manuscripts survived by 1471, copied out by hand across monastic houses, and the first printed edition appeared in Augsburg around 1471–72.

An autograph manuscript in à Kempis’s own hand, dated 1441, is preserved at the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels (MS 5855-61) — part of the evidence that eventually settled the long authorship quarrel in his favour.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Change Growth Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Imitation of Christ (Benham translation), full textgutenberg.org

The complete Benham English translation; Book I, Chapter XXI contains the line verbatim.
De Imitatione Christi, Liber Primus (Latin)thelatinlibrary.com

The Latin of Book I, including Cap. 21 "De compunctione cordis" and the sentence, pointed here as two: "Certa viriliter. Consuetudo consuetudine vincitur."
The Imitation of Christ: Four Books, trans. Benham (1886)archive.org

Scanned illustrated edition, London: J. C. Nimmo, 1886 — a dated printing of the translation quoted here.
Book 1, Chapter 21 in a different English translationcatholicarchive.org

Renders the same Latin as "Fight like a man. Habit is overcome by habit" — useful for seeing how much the translator decides.
Thomas à Kempis (sourced quotations)en.wikiquote.org

Quotations from The Imitation of Christ organised by book and chapter; this particular line is not among them.
Quote Origin: No Matter Where You Go, There You Arequoteinvestigator.com

Quote Investigator traces another famous saying back to The Imitation of Christ and compares the 1881, 1952 and 2006 renderings of its Latin.

The author

Who was Thomas à Kempis?

Thomas à Kempis

c. 1380 – 1 May 1471 · German-Dutch canon regular & devotional writer

Thomas à Kempis was a German-Dutch canon regular of the Augustinians in the Congregation of Windesheim, shaped by the Modern Devotion movement. He entered the monastery of Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle in 1406 and became its sub-prior in 1429, spending a long life copying manuscripts and instructing novices. He is remembered almost entirely for one book, The Imitation of Christ, written c. 1418–1427 — a work Thomas More reportedly called one of the three everybody ought to own.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this

Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ. Translated by William Benham. Book I, chapter 21, "Of compunction of heart." Benham's translation in print by 1874 (Macmillan); text consulted in Project Gutenberg ebook no. 1653. Latin original: "Certa viriliter: consuetudo consuetudine vincitur."

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Strive manfully; custom is overcome by custom’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/strive-manfully-custom-is-overcome-by-custom/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied