"If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting"
About this Quote
The subtext is a quiet argument with the American myth of sheer willpower. Wilder grants the power of community imagination (“enough people think of a thing”) and the dignity of effort (“work hard enough at it”), then punctures any triumphalist fantasy with a shrug toward reality: “wind and weather permitting.” It’s not just meteorology; it’s the entire ecology of contingency - illness, bad luck, economics, all the forces that don’t care about your vision board.
Context matters. Wilder wrote out of a frontier world where survival and success were constantly negotiated with the elements. In that setting, ambition isn’t a glossy self-help slogan; it’s literally building, planting, hauling, enduring. Her phrasing turns progress into a communal project, but refuses to pretend that humans are in charge. That tension is why the line still lands: it honors agency while acknowledging limits, a corrective to both fatalism and hustle-culture delusion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. (2026, January 16). If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-enough-people-think-of-a-thing-and-work-hard-96941/
Chicago Style
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. "If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-enough-people-think-of-a-thing-and-work-hard-96941/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-enough-people-think-of-a-thing-and-work-hard-96941/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.
