Thomas Haig Palmer

1782 - 1861

Coined the phrase "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again"

From http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5420757.Thomas_H_Palmer

“Tis a lesson you should heed:
Try, try, try again.
If at first you don't succeed,
Try, try, try again.”
― Thomas H. Palmer

From "Founders Online"
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-05-02-0540

Printer, author, and educational reformer, was born in Kelso, Scotland, and immigrated to
Philadelphia in 1801. There he ran a printing office on his own and in partnership with his brother
George Palmer for the next quarter century. The Palmers’ firms printed the travels of John Melish,
a medical dictionary by John Redman Coxe, and Palmer’s own compilation of American state papers and
official records, The Historical Register of the United States, 4 vols. (Washington, 1814–16; Poor,
Jefferson’s Library, 5 [no. 145]), to which Thomas Jefferson subscribed. His brother died in 1817,
and in 1826 Palmer moved to Rutland County, Vermont. In his latter years he farmed, served as a
school superintendent, helped found a model lyceum and library in Pittsford, and advocated educational reforms.
Palmer authored textbooks and other educational aids, including an 1840 teachers’ manual
in which he evidently coined the motivational proverb, “If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try
again.” In 1853 he served as the corresponding secretary of a Vermont peace convention. Palmer’s
final work, a dictionary of proper names, remained unpublished at his death (Abby Maria Hemenway,
The Vermont Historical Gazetteer [1868–91], 3:957–62; Cornelius William Stafford, Philadelphia
Directory, for 1801 [Philadelphia, 1801], 39; James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory, City and
County Register, for 1802 [Philadelphia, 1802], 187; TJ to Palmer, 22 May 1813; Philadelphia
Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 12 Mar. 1817; Thomas Wilson, ed., The Philadelphia Directory
and Stranger’s Guide, for 1825 [Philadelphia, 1825], 106; Abiel M. Caverly, History of the Town of
Pittsford, Vt. [1872; repr. 1976], 386–7, 534–5, 577–81, 717–8; Palmer, The Teacher’s Manual
[1840], 223; Windsor Vermont Chronicle, 4 June 1845, 1 Apr. 1846, 5 July 1853).

Palmer later recalled having published his tabular view of the constitutions of the u.s. & of the
several states in 1817, and he sent TJ a copy of the work in 1825, but no distinct edition has been
found (Hemenway, 3:961; Palmer to TJ, 9 Mar. 1825). It was published as item number seven in Henry
Charles Carey, A Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas, being a guide
to the history of North and South America, and the West Indies (Philadelphia, 1822), which Palmer
printed. Palmer based his work on the edition of the constitutions printed by William duane as The
Constitutions of the United States; according to the Latest Amendments, to which are prefixed the
Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia, 1806).