where there is a will there is a way

alternative where there is a will · alternative where there is a will, there is a way · alternative where there's a will there's a way

1. If someone wants or wills something strongly enough, a way can be found to make it happen.

   Where there is a will there is a way; but where there is no will there is no way, and that is the case with my honorable friend opposite.

   1882 August 24, John McKenzie, “Land Boards Bill”, in New Zealand. Parliamentary Debates. First Session of the Eighth Parliament. […] (House of Representatives), volume XLIII, Wellington: G. Didsbury, government printer, →OCLC, page 550, column 2

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   [I]f he leaves the School poſſeſs'd of a ſluggiſh indolent Diſpoſition, and of Learning rather forc'd upon him than choſen, it is probable he will forget what he brought thence; but if he be active, emulous and aſpiring, he will certainly find Time for Reading and Thinking; for tho' it be a homely, it is a true Saying, that where there is a Will, there is a Way.

   1724, Pharmacopolæ Justificati: Or, Apothecaries Vindicated from the Imputation of Ignorance. Wherein is Shown, that an Academical Education is No Way Necessary to Qualify a Man for the Practice of Physick, London: Printed for J. Roberts, […], →OCLC, page 6

   [H]ow far the particular practices in regard to Works of Industry may be usefully adopted, it is difficult to determine; but "where there is a will, there is a way:" local habits and circumstances must be the guides.

   1796, Baron von Voght [i.e., Caspar Voght], “Account of the Management of the Poor in Hamburgh, between the Years 1788 and 1794. In a Letter to Some Friends of the Poor in Great Britain. […]”, in The Pamphleteer: Respectfully Dedicated to both Houses of Parliament, volume XI, number XXII, London: Printed by A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […]; sold by Rest Fenner, […]; Lloyd; Black, Kingsbury, and Co., […], published 1818, page 444

   Unmindful of her former poverty, she was perpetually teasing Riboulard to take a lodging in Rue St. Honoré, and to allow her to dress in a style more suitable to her station. [...] It is an old saying, that where there is a will, there is always a way. At the end of a few months, Rosalia began to trick out her person, without the corporal's knowledge; [...]

   [1810, Pigault-Lebrun [pseudonym; Charles-Antoine-Guillaume Pigault de l’Espinoy], “My Grandfather Riboulard, and My Grandmother Rosalia, are Really Married”, in My Uncle Thomas. A Romance. In Two Volumes. From the French, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Printed [by Isaac Riley] for John Brannan, →OCLC, page 16

   The powerful and the fortunate are very fond of the maxim, "where there's a will there's a way;" and they rarely use it without expressing in very clear terms a cold, insolent, and uncharitable judgment upon exertions they are themselves not called upon to make, while they modestly declare that such exertions, if by them made, would be triumphant. They say, in sort, to the weak and unprosperous—You might succeed if you would, for effort is success, and we should find a certain and easy conquest where you have met but baffled hopes and continual defeat!

   1840 November, [Samuel] Laman Blanchard, “A Quarrel with Some Old Acquaintances”, in Theodore Hook, editor, The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, volume LX, 3rd part, number CCXXXIX, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, section 10 (Where There’s a Will There’s a Way), page 408

   Rolliver's inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and broken village, could only boast of an off-license; [...] [T]hirsty strangers [...] wished they could have a restful seat inside. Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers who felt the same wish; and where there's a will there's a way. In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady Mrs. Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking vinous bliss; [...]

   1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden), pages 40–41