Please help before I make Google explode!

May 3, 2009 9:35 AM

Please help me find this exact quotation and its citation!

There is a quote I read once somewhere that was a toast that a group of revolutionaries (I think communists) used to make and it was something like "Cheers to the success of our impossible task." At least that's how my brain remembers it. But whatever the quote is, I think its a toast and what it's doing is acknowledging both how difficult it is to make change while exhibiting the optimism of "knowing" that you can/will make it.

Does this ring a bell to anyone? If you can find the exact quote and its citation, I'd be very grateful. Thank you in advance.

posted by Rudy Gerner to grab bag (6 comments total)

Apparently Soviet dissidents in the 1970s used to end their meetings with "Here's to the success of our impossible task!" Of course, they would've said it in Russian, but that's OK.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:07 AM on May 3

I just Googled "success of our impossible task," btw.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:08 AM on May 3

I have googled various Russian versions and come up empty, which doesn't prove anything but suggests this may be more legendary than factual.
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on May 3

In his sermon for First Unitarian Denver "Whisper Across the Divide" (January 9, 2005), Rev Mike Morran mentions "I once heard Father Daniel Berrigan tell of his efforts in the late 1980s to set up a free press in Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union. Every Friday they would gather around some cheap vodka in the makeshift apartment they used for an office and say, “Let us toast to the success of our impossible task!”"
posted by Petrot at 11:11 AM on May 3

Thanks, everyone. I swear I googled this to high heaven and couldn't find anything useful. Now I feel like a dolt.

Thanks again.
posted by Rudy Gerner at 11:45 AM on May 3

Nah, don't. It happens to all of us.

Could you have been searching without using quotes? If you're looking for an exact phrase, put it in quotes and Google will give you results with those words in that sequence (e.g., "coffee beans") instead of all results with those words appearing anywhere (e.g., "coffee" and "beans").
posted by cribcage at 1:26 PM on May 3