As quoted in "The Vindication of Edwin Land" in Forbes magazine, Vol. 139 (4 May 1987) p. 83; this was later humorously altered:
Context: My motto is very personal and may not fit anyone else or any other company. It is: Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
“Anything worth doing can be done by someone else.”
Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)
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American artist 1959Related quotes
“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly--until you can learn to do it well.”
“Never confuse someone else's inability to do something with its inability to be done.”
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 16
As quoted in "The Vindication of Edwin Land" in Forbes magazine, Vol. 139 (4 May 1987) p. 83; this was later humorously altered:
Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
Edwin Ladd, Department of Astronomy, Harvard University (August, 1990), as quoted by Lincoln J. Greenhill at Harvard University http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~lincoln/

As quoted in The Federal Career Service: A Look Ahead (1954)
1950s
Variant: Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.

“Life isn't worth living, unless it is lived for someone else.”

“… no sooner had you done something than someone else appeared who threatened to do it better.”
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)

“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”

“Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well.”
Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

as quoted by [Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes, Biographical Memoirs V.83, National Academies Press, 2003, 0-309-08699-X, 201]