Widely credited to Palmer, and Quote Investigator concludes he probably did say it. But the earliest documented appearance is secondhand: a speech by U.S. Steel president Leslie B. Worthington, printed in The Baytown Sun on 11 August 1966, quoting “a pretty fair golfer by the name of Arnie Palmer.” No interview, book or letter in Palmer’s own words has been located for this wording.
“The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done” Arnold Palmer (attributed) — earliest documented in The Baytown Sun, 11 August 1966, quoting a speech by Leslie B. Worthington
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In context
Evoking the world of Arnold Palmer — American professional golfer, 62 PGA Tour wins. Theme: "The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done". 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 "The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done". 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 documented appearance
The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Texas), 11 August 1966, p. 8, col. 4
Quoted by
Leslie B. Worthington, President of U.S. Steel Corporation, in an address delivered in Houston, Texas
Credited in that text to
“a pretty fair golfer by the name of Arnie Palmer”
Primary source in Palmer’s own words
None located
As a friend of mine up in Pennsylvania — a pretty fair golfer by the name of Arnie Palmer — remarked some time ago: “The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.”
Worthington’s 1966 address as transcribed by Quote Investigator from The Baytown Sun. Note the framing: Palmer “remarked some time ago” — this is a speaker repeating a line he had heard, which is why the attribution is credible but not confirmed.
Quote Investigator dates the earliest known appearance to 11 August 1966, in The Baytown Sun’s printing of the full text of a speech by U.S. Steel president Leslie B. Worthington, who credited the line to Palmer.
QI’s conclusion is deliberately hedged: it “believes that Arnold Palmer did make this remark” and found “no substantive alternative ascriptions,” while noting that the earliest citation offers only indirect testimony and that “a direct excerpt from an interview with Palmer would provide superior evidence.” We mirror that hedge rather than upgrading it.
QI then tracks the line through a 1977 compilation (Lloyd Cory, Quote Unquote) and a 1988 speaker’s handbook, both crediting Palmer — the route by which it entered the quotation-book circuit.
Palmer’s Wikiquote page carries only book-sourced lines, and this is not among them.
The earliest documented publication of this wording is 1966 — well after the 1931 cutoff for the United States public domain — and no earlier printing has been found. We therefore treat it as in copyright rather than claiming a public-domain status we cannot establish.
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 the web gets wrong
Nobody else is seriously credited with this line. The errors here are about where it came from, and the most popular answer is chronologically impossible.
~
Commonly cited asPalmer’s memoir A Life Well Played: My StoriesWrong source
Quotation sites routinely attach the line to Palmer’s 2016 memoir. That book cannot be the origin: QI documents the saying in print in 1966, fifty years earlier.
~
Reworded in the wild“Our most rewarding deeds are the ones that look like they can’t be done” Reworded, no credit
A 14 September 1971 advertisement in The Hutchinson News of Hutchinson, Kansas — placed by John Sutton of Sutton Transmission Service — ran this reshaped version with no attribution at all, showing how quickly the wording drifted once it was loose.
✓The credit to Palmer is sound as far as anyone can show; what is not sound is the confident sourcing. Everything traces back to one 1966 speech by somebody else.
Context
Why it mattered
The line reached print not through golf but through heavy industry. In August 1966 Leslie B. Worthington, then president of U.S. Steel, used it to close out an address in Houston, reaching for his Pennsylvania neighbour — Palmer was a Latrobe man — as the homely authority on attempting the impossible.
That is the ordinary way a saying becomes a quotation: not published by its author, but borrowed by a speaker who needed it, then copied into a compilation, then into another. By the time it reached the 1977 and 1988 quotation books, the 1966 speech had dropped away and only the name remained.
A speaker repeating a line he had heard “some time ago” is the entire documentary basis for one of golf’s most-quoted sentences.
Read the full story
Palmer is an unusually clean case for a magnet author: Quote Investigator looked and found no rival claimant, which is rare. The gap here is not a competing name but missing paperwork — fifty years of reprinting with nobody ever producing the interview, letter or book page where Palmer said it himself.
That is why this page reads “attributed” and not “verified.” The distinction is not pedantry: it is the difference between “we found where he said it” and “we found where someone said he said it.”
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1929–2016 · American professional golfer, 62 PGA Tour wins
Arnold Daniel Palmer (1929–2016) was the golfer who made golf a television sport. The son of a club professional at Latrobe Country Club in western Pennsylvania, he won 62 PGA Tour titles between 1955 and 1973, including seven major championships, and drew the galleries that became known as Arnie’s Army. He was among the inaugural inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented source (Chicago)
“U.S. Steel Boss Lauds Baytown Council, CC For Spur Action.” The Baytown Sun (Baytown, TX), August 11, 1966, p. 8, col. 4. Full text of an address by Leslie B. Worthington, crediting Arnold Palmer. Chronology via Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: The Most Rewarding Things You Do in Life Are Often the Ones that Look Like They Cannot Be Done,” April 22, 2015.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done’?” Last verified 8 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-most-rewarding-things-you-do-in-life-are-often-the-ones/