
“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”
Source: Zombies Vs. Unicorns
“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold 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.
Original: (hi) Brahma satyam jagat mithyam, jivo brahmaiva naparah
“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
As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson; also quoted in Running on Empty: Meditations for Indispensable Women (1992) by Ellen Sue Stern, p. 235
Paraphrased variants: The most important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
Take your work seriously, but never yourself.