I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

He was the author or editor of more than sixty books—fiction travel sermons biography and history. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. It was possibly an influence on the novel The Begum's Fortune by Jules Verne.

Edward Everett Hale (April 3 1822 – June 10 1909) was an American author historian and Unitarian clergyman.