“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” In March 1942 a newspaper column credited to the New York Sun reported this as the training slogan of the Army’s Ordnance Department. In January 1943 Major General Henry S. Aurand raised it one level for his supply command: “The impossible we do immediately; the miraculous takes a little longer.”
The idea came from Europe. A 1795 magazine quotes the French finance minister Calonne: “If it is possible, Madam, the affair is done; if it is impossible, it shall be done!” In 1925 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen said: “The difficult is that which can be done at once: the impossible is that which takes a little longer.”