When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on (Spurious Quotation)

Quotation: “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

Variations:

1. “If you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”
2. “When get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”
3. “When you think you have reached the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

Sources consulted:

1. Founders Online
2. Papers of Thomas Jefferson and Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series

Earliest known appearance in print: 1923[1]

Earliest known appearance in print, attributed to Thomas Jefferson: 1996[2]

Other attributions:

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2. Theodore Roosevelt
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Benjamin Franklin

Status: This quotation has never been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It is listed as a proverb from the American West in a 1946 article in California Folklore Quarterly.[3]