What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

Robert H. Schuller (1926–2015), the American televangelist and founder of the Crystal Cathedral, popularized a style of “possibility thinking” in sermons, broadcasts, and motivational books from the 1970s onward. The question “What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” is widely circulated as a Schuller maxim in that self-help/sermonic context, used to prompt audiences to imagine goals beyond fear of failure and to reframe risk as a spiritual and psychological barrier. While strongly associated with Schuller’s public persona and message, the line often appears in quotation collections without a precise date or pinpointed first publication.

The quote is a rhetorical device meant to expose how fear—of embarrassment, loss, or inadequacy—shrinks ambition. By removing the possibility of failure, even hypothetically, it reveals a person’s latent “great thing”: the aspiration they most desire but hesitate to pursue. In Schuller’s framework, the question functions as both diagnosis and invitation: diagnosis of limiting beliefs, and invitation to act with faith, planning, and courage. Its significance lies in shifting attention from constraints to purpose, encouraging people to define a meaningful aim first and then work backward to the steps, resources, and resilience needed to attempt it.

1) “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
2) “What great thing would you dare to attempt if you knew you could not fail?”
3) “What would you attempt if you knew you wouldn’t fail?”