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Who really said it

The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer

Not Calonne’s words — his were different, and French Charles Alexandre de Calonne 1734–1802 · Controller-General of Finances to Louis XVI
Disputed Free to reuse

Calonne is where the trail starts, but not where this sentence comes from. The earliest record, printed in 1794, has him telling Marie Antoinette: “If it is possible, madam, the affair is done; if it is impossible, it shall be done!” The version in circulation today — difficult/immediately, impossible/a little longer — is an American military slogan documented in 1942, after a century and a half of the saying being reworded and re-credited to a long line of other people.

Last verified 7 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer” The slogan “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer” is documented in 1942 as a training slogan of the U.S. Army Ordnance Department. Its oldest known ancestor is a remark ascribed to Louis XVI's finance minister Charles Alexandre de Calonne in 1794: “If it is possible, madam, the affair is done; if it is impossible, it shall be done!”

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In context

Evoking the themes of work, courage and power. Theme: "The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer". 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.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer". 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

Earliest record
Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation, During the Last Thirty Years
Published
1794, London — attributed to Isaac Disraeli
Occasion described
Calonne answering the queen’s requests for money, dated in the text to April 1784
Famous wording
Documented 1942 as a training slogan of the U.S. Army Ordnance Department

When the queen asked Calonne for money, he more than once made use of this singular expression: “If it is possible, Madam, the affair is done; if it is impossible, it shall be done!” Appropriate language for a French petit-maitre addressing his mistress, but not for a financier in whose hands was reposed the prosperity of an oppressed people!

From the 1794 first edition, whose scan sets the long ſ and garbles a few letters; the wording above follows the printed text. Note what it is not: there is no “difficult”, no “immediately” and no “a little longer” anywhere in it.

Printed collection, 1794 first edition
Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation (1794)
Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation (1794) — full text

How we verified this

  • The 1794 wording was read directly in the scanned first edition at the Internet Archive ↗, which prints “When the queen aſked Calonne for money, he more than once made uſe of this ſingular expreſſion” followed by the sentence above.
  • The chain from that remark to the modern slogan follows Quote Investigator ↗, which dates the key steps: Trollope’s Phineas Redux (1874) introducing “difficult”, Lady Aberdeen (1913), Mrs William Tilton (1921), Fridtjof Nansen at the League of Nations (1925) and George Santayana in Reader’s Digest (1939).
  • For the wording quoted today, Quote Investigator’s earliest citation is 1942, reporting “the training slogan of the Ordnance Department of the Army” — “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.”
  • Quote Investigator’s own hedge is carried here rather than smoothed over: it “is not a historian”, and it “seems possible that the anecdote and quotation were deliberately constructed to attack Calonne and/or Marie Antoinette.”
Public domain

The excerpt shown is from a book published in London in 1794, long out of copyright and in the public domain in the United States. The familiar modern wording is a separate matter: it is first documented as an unsigned 1942 U.S. Army training slogan, and no author of it has been established.

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

Often misattributed

Few sayings have been re-credited this often. Each name below was attached to some version of it in print, and the wording shifted a little with every hand it passed through.

The U.S. Army Ordnance Department Where the famous sentence actually appears

The earliest instance of the modern wording located by Quote Investigator ↗ is a 1942 newspaper item describing it as the Ordnance Department’s training slogan — a phrase “obviously custom-made” but sounding “as though it were made in America.”

Nicolas Beaujon

A French memoir of 1802, Mon Voyage au Mont d’Or, gives the queen’s-request remark not to Calonne but to the court banker Nicolas Beaujon.

Baron de Breteuil

The Literary Gazette of London printed the exchange in January 1825 with Breteuil as the speaker, and it was reprinted elsewhere the same year.

Lady Aberdeen

A 1913 prohibition tract quotes “the fine saying of Lady Aberdeen” — “The difference between the difficult and the impossible is that the impossible takes a little longer time.”

Fridtjof Nansen

The polar explorer used a two-part version at the League of Nations in 1925, but presented it as a known definition and claimed no credit for it.

George Santayana

Reader’s Digest credited the philosopher in November 1939 without a precise citation — evidence Quote Investigator calls “not very strong.”

The sentence people quote is American and wartime; the idea behind it is French and much older. Calonne’s documented version is in the 1794 collection ↗: “If it is possible, Madam, the affair is done; if it is impossible, it shall be done!”

Context

Why it mattered

In the original the line is not a boast about getting things done — it is a courtier’s flattery, and the 1794 writer prints it as an indictment. Calonne was the minister telling a queen that her requests would be met whether the treasury could meet them or not, and the passage ends by calling it language fit for a petit-maitre rather than a financier holding up an oppressed country’s finances.

Stripped of that setting and recast as a slogan, the same confidence became admirable. By 1942 it was a U.S. Army training motto, and officers were already improving on it: a general offered “the impossible we do immediately; the miraculous takes a little longer” in January 1943.

In 1794 the line was an accusation. By 1942 it was a motto.

Read the full story

The 1794 account places the exchange in April 1784, when the queen asked for money to clear debts and Calonne “only intreated time”. He had become Controller-General of Finances in 1783 and was dismissed in 1787; the monarchy he served fell within a decade, and both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793, the year before this collection appeared.

That timing is why the anecdote should be handled carefully. The earliest record of the remark was printed after its subjects were dead and in a book whose stated purpose was to be “indicative of the French Revolution”, which is the basis for Quote Investigator’s suggestion that the story may have been constructed to damage Calonne and the queen.

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Filed under

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

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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.

Quote Investigator: the difficult and the impossiblequoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: every variant from 1794 to 1943, dated, with each re-credit traced to its printing.
Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation (1794) — full textarchive.org

The earliest known record of the remark, in the first edition. Search the text for “Calonne” to reach the passage.
Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation (1794) — scan detailsarchive.org

Catalogue record and page images for the same 1794 volume.
Charles Alexandre de Calonneen.wikipedia.org

Life dates (20 January 1734 – 30 October 1802) and his tenure as Louis XVI’s Controller-General of Finances.
Marie Antoinetteen.wikipedia.org

The other party to the anecdote: Queen of France from 1774, executed in October 1793.

The author

About Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Charles Alexandre de Calonne

1734–1802 · French statesman & Controller-General of Finances

Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed Controller-General of Finances by Louis XVI in 1783 and dismissed in 1787. He tried to meet a desperate fiscal crisis by borrowing and spending freely while proposing to tax privileged landholders — a programme the Assembly of Notables rejected, helping set the French Revolution in motion. He spent his later years in exile, mostly in England, and died in Paris in 1802.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

[Disraeli, Isaac]. Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nation, During the Last Thirty Years: Indicative of the French Revolution. London: Printed for C. and G. Kearsley, 1794. Chapter: The Queen.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer’?” Last verified 7 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-difficult-we-do-immediately-the-impossible-takes-a/

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