Did Thomas Edison say "When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't"?

Q: Did Thomas Edison say "When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't"?

No. The line is a Robert H. Schuller aphorism, printed on page 27 of his 1983 bestseller Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! and credited in print as early as September 1981 to a "Dr. Robert Shuler" — which Quote Investigator reads as a misspelling of Schuller. Thomas Edison died in 1931 — half a century before the saying's first known appearance — and Quote Investigator finds the Edison ascription unsupported; it appears to begin with a single Indiana newspaper in 2000.

Who really said it

When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't

Not Thomas Edison — actually Robert H. Schuller Robert H. Schuller 1926–2015 · American minister, televangelist & motivational author

Disputed In copyright

The line is a Robert H. Schuller aphorism, printed on page 27 of his 1983 bestseller Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! and credited in print as early as September 1981 to a “Dr. Robert Shuler” — which Quote Investigator reads as a misspelling of Schuller. Thomas Edison died in 1931 — half a century before the saying’s first known appearance — and Quote Investigator finds the Edison ascription unsupported ↗; it appears to begin with a single Indiana newspaper in 2000.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't” Robert H. Schuller, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! (1983). Widely misattributed to Thomas Edison, who died in 1931.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Thomas Edison. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Schuller’s estate and his publisher, Thomas Nelson — presumed, not established by any cited source). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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

In context

Evoking the world of Robert H. Schuller — American televangelist, pastor & motivational author. Theme: "When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't". 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 "When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't". 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

Where the line actually comes from

Work: Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!
Author & publication: Robert H. Schuller · Thomas Nelson, 1983
Page: 27 (per Quote Investigator)
Earliest known appearance: Sentinel Star (Orlando), 9 September 1981 — credited to “Dr. Robert Shuler”, which QI reads as Schuller

When you’ve exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven’t! Aphorism, not narrative

This is the wording as printed in Schuller’s 1983 book, per Quote Investigator ↗. The 1981 newspaper version reads “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this . . . you haven’t.” The circulating Edison version drops the contraction and swaps the colon for a dash. No fuller surrounding passage is reproduced in the sources consulted here — the line stands alone as an aphorism.

Quote Investigator: Quote Origin: When You’ve Exhausted All Possibilities, Remember This: You Haven’t!

The paper trail

1977 — A different saying with the same opening phrase appears in Arthur Bloch’s Murphy’s Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!, page 36: a joke about the overlooked obvious solution, not an exhortation to persist, per Quote Investigator ↗.
9 September 1981 — The earliest documented appearance of the saying itself: Helen Peikin’s column in Orlando’s Sentinel Star, page 22, printing it as “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this . . . you haven’t” and crediting “Dr. Robert Shuler” — which Quote Investigator conjectures is a misspelling of Schuller ↗.
1983 — Schuller prints it on page 27 of Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!, without crediting anyone else; Wikiquote points to the same book as the location of the line ↗. He reuses it in his 1984 collection Dare To Succeed, page 17.
19 April 2000 — The Reporter-Times of Martinsville, Indiana moves the credit to Thomas Edison, and other newspapers follow; QI calls the shift inexplicable and the Edison attribution unsupported ↗.

In copyright

The work containing this line, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!, was first published in 1983 by Thomas Nelson — listed as Schuller’s notable work ↗ — and is therefore still under US copyright; it will not enter the public domain for decades. Note that the Edison misattribution is what makes this line feel free to use: had Edison written it, the work would long since be public domain. He didn’t, and it isn’t. Quoting a single aphorism with attribution is ordinary fair use; reproducing the surrounding text is not.

Fact-check

How Edison got the credit

This is a textbook famous-name migration: a living author’s one-liner detaches from him, drifts for two decades, and lands on a dead inventor whose brand is perseverance.

Thomas Edison unsupported

Edison died in 1931. The saying is not documented anywhere in his lifetime, and Wikiquote notes it is “not located in Edison’s writings” ↗, filing it under Disputed. Quote Investigator states the ascription is unsupported ↗.

The Reporter-Times, Martinsville, Indiana 19 Apr 2000

QI identifies this item as the point where the credit inexplicably moved off Schuller and onto Edison ↗, printing it as “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven’t.” Other newspapers followed.

The Edison Innovation Foundation and Goodreads still uncorrected

The foundation’s own quotes page lists the line as Edison’s ↗ with no citation for it or any other quote it prints. Goodreads does the same ↗ under a disclaimer that its quotes are community-added and unverified. An Edison-branded source repeating a claim is not evidence for it.

Arthur Bloch's Murphy's Law (1977) different saying

QI records a 1977 precursor ↗ — “Once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else” — which shares the opening phrase but makes the opposite point. It is not the source of Schuller’s line, and it is not Edison’s either.

Credit belongs to Robert H. Schuller: printed under his own name in 1983, and credited as early as September 1981 under a spelling Quote Investigator reads as his, per Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗.

Context

Why it stuck to Edison

The saying is a piece of pure 1980s American motivational rhetoric — a paradox you can fit on a poster. Robert Schuller built a career on exactly this: compact, self-contained one-liners, delivered weekly to a television audience of millions and packaged into bestsellers. When Leslie Hanscom reviewed Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! for Newsday in July 1983, the book’s reliance on such one-liners was the point of the critique — and this line was the specimen he reprinted, quoting page 27 in full as an example of the habit he was needling, according to Quote Investigator’s survey of the record ↗.

A detachable line needs a famous owner, and Edison is the patron saint of not-quitting. He already carries “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” and “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.” A quip about refusing to accept that the possibilities are exhausted slots into that persona without friction — which is precisely what makes the misattribution frictionless, and precisely why it deserves checking rather than nodding at.

Edison died in 1931. The line first surfaces in 1981.

The fifty-year gap, in one line

Edison died on 18 October 1931. The earliest documented appearance of this saying that Quote Investigator located ↗ is a column by Helen Peikin in Orlando’s Sentinel Star on 9 September 1981 — where it is already credited to a “Dr. Robert Shuler”, which Quote Investigator conjectures is a misspelling of Schuller, not to Edison.

A related but distinct saying appears earlier, in Arthur Bloch’s 1977 Murphy’s Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!: “Once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.” That is a joke about oversight, not an exhortation about persistence — a cousin of Schuller’s line, not its source, and it is not credited to Edison either.

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Filed under

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

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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 Origin: When You've Exhausted All Possibilities, Remember This: You Haven't!quoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation. Traces the saying from a September 1981 newspaper column crediting Schuller through his 1983 book, and states the Edison attribution is unsupported.

Thomas Edison — Disputeden.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote files the line under Disputed, noting it is not located in Edison's writings but is found in Schuller's 1983 self-help book.

Talk:Thomas Edisonen.wikiquote.org

Editor discussion citing Quote Investigator and proposing the line be moved from Disputed to Misattributed.

Robert H. Schulleren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the actual author (1926–2015), listing Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do (1983, Thomas Nelson) as his notable work.

Edison Quotes (Edison Innovation Foundation)thomasedison.org

An Edison-affiliated foundation lists the line as Edison's, with no source citation for it or any other quote on the page — a live amplifier of the error.

Goodreads quote pagegoodreads.com

Shows the line credited to Thomas Edison with no source, under Goodreads' own disclaimer that community-added quotes are unverified.

The man who actually said it

Robert H. Schuller

1926–2015 · American televangelist, pastor & motivational author

Robert Harold Schuller was an American Reformed Church in America minister who founded the Garden Grove Community Church in 1955 and built it into the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. From 1970 until his retirement in 2006 he hosted the weekly television broadcast Hour of Power, one of the most-watched religious programs in the United States. His trademark was the compact, quotable one-liner — his 1983 bestseller Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! is built out of them, which is exactly why his aphorisms travelled so easily away from his name.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Robert H. Schuller, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! (Thomas Nelson, 1983), 27. Earliest documented use: Helen Peikin’s column, Sentinel Star (Orlando, FL), 9 September 1981, 22, credited to “Dr. Robert Shuler” — both citations per Quote Investigator, 21 October 2022.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-youve-exhausted-all-possibilities-remember-this-you