
“When you reach 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.”
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”
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).
Misattributed
Variant: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
“If you're at the end of your rope… untie the knot in your heart.”
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.”
Source: More Poems
Quoted in Dionne, E. J., The Washington Post, (16 November 2004)]