“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
The earliest citation yet found does not attribute this to Roosevelt, but presents it as a piece of anonymous piece folk-wisdom: "When one reaches the end of his rope, he should tie a knot in it and hang on" ( LIFE magazine (3 April 1919), p. 585 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89063018576?urlappend=%3Bseq=65). <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
“If you're at the end of your rope… untie the knot in your heart.”
Cooper Edens (1945) American writer
Source: If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow/Add One More Star to the Night
“All knots that lovers tie
Are tied to sever.
Here shall your sweetheart lie,
Untrue for ever.”
A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet
Source: More Poems
Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts
Quoted in Dionne, E. J., The Washington Post, (16 November 2004)]
Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist
When You Come Back to Me Again, written by Jenny Yates and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Scarecrow (2001)
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996
“When I can make
Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
"I had you and I have you now no more.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet
Source: Renascence and Other Poems