"If you want to get somewhere you have to know where you want to go and how to get there," explained motivational writer Norman Vincent Peale, "then never, never, never give up."

In 1930, writer Watty Piper wrote a children's book that is a joy to read aloud and has inspired children... and adults... for generations to never give up.

A simple but powerful tribute to positive thinking, The Little Engine That Could was written around the same time as the stock market crash and Great Depression, a time when the world needed the spiritual propulsion to keep going despite hardships and challenges.

Although not very large, Piper's Little Engine agrees to pull a train full of toys over the mountain for the good boys and girls on the other side. The going uphill was tough, impossibly so, but with a can-do attitude and conviction in ability, the engine made it up and over the top.

From the fruits of perseverance comes heroic success.

Helen Keller, whose life was a metaphor for perseverance, once wrote, "When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."

Know that you can.