There is no defeat except from within. There is really no insurmountable barrier, save your own inherent weakness of purpose.

Quote Investigator identifies Robert Burns Wilson’s “And So—I Gave Up Trying!” in The Critic, 8 October 1887, p. 173, as the earliest match it located. An anonymous piece in Mining and Scientific Press (1 June 1895, p. 344) reused this material, changing ‘your own’ to ‘our own’ and joining the sentences. The Educator-Journal credited the two-sentence form to Emerson in April 1905. The anonymous longer piece appeared in the Elbert Hubbard chapter of Alice Hubbard’s An American Bible (1911), p. 304, without an acknowledgement; Quote Investigator treats this as the first attribution it found to Elbert Hubbard, and reports a further unattributed printing in The Fra in July 1913. Both QI articles were read here; the original periodicals and book were not. A request for the Google Books copy of the 1887 Critic was blocked by robots.txt and was not read. The two held English Hubbard texts, A Message to Garcia and Little Journeys (Great Teachers), yielded no match for ‘There is no defeat except from within’. This is not a claim to have searched all Hubbard’s writings.

1. 8 October 1887Earliest found · credited to Robert Burns WilsonWilson publishes the two sentences in his essay in The Critic; this is the earliest appearance located by Quote Investigator.Robert Burns Wilson, “And So—I Gave Up Trying!”, The Critic, 8 October 1887, p. 173. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 1 June 1895Reworded · credited to no oneAn anonymous motivational piece reuses and rearranges Wilson’s sentences, changing the second-person pronoun to the first-person plural.“Keeping Everlastingly At It Brings Success”, Mining and Scientific Press, volume 70, number 22, 1 June 1895, p. 344, column 3. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. April 1905Credited to Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Educator-Journal prints the two-sentence form as an epigraph credited to Emerson.The Educator-Journal, volume 5, number 8, April 1905, front-page epigraph, front page. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 1911Credited to Elbert Hubbard (by placement in his chapter, not an explicit byline)The anonymous 1895 piece is printed without acknowledgement in the Elbert Hubbard chapter of An American Bible, giving the impression that Hubbard wrote it.An American Bible, edited by Alice Hubbard (The Roycrofters, 1911), chapter “Elbert Hubbard”, p. 304. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. July 1913SpreadHubbard’s The Fra prints the longer piece without attribution, according to Quote Investigator’s separate investigation of its opening sentence.The Fra: Exponent of the American Philosophy, volume 11, number 4, July 1913, untitled item, p. 108. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

A motivational maxim circulated under Hubbard’s name and also under Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Kin Hubbard’s. Quote Investigator traces the two sentences to an 1887 essay by Robert Burns Wilson. An anonymous 1895 piece reused and rearranged Wilson’s sentences, and that longer piece subsequently appeared in publications associated with Elbert Hubbard.

The maxim claims that determination, rather than external obstacles, ultimately decides whether a person is defeated.

Reprinted as Hubbard’s original wisdom, although the identifiable sentences were published under Wilson’s name years before their appearance in the Hubbard collection. The absolute claim about overcoming every barrier is motivational rhetoric, not proof that every failure is a personal fault.

Wisdom

• To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. (misattributed) Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. (misattributed) Epicurus
• The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. (misattributed) Epictetus
• Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. (not found) Marilyn Monroe
• You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. (not found) Marcus Aurelius

• quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/20/insurmountable
• quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/23/efforts
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard

“There is no defeat except from within. There is really no insurmountable barrier, save your own inherent weakness of purpose.” Attributed to Elbert Hubbard. No. Robert Burns Wilson wrote it, not Hubbard. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/there-is-no-defeat-except-from-within/ (checked 30 October 2026).

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