I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Attributed in Civilization's Quotations : Life's Ideal (2002) by Richard Alan Krieger, p. 132, and many places on the internet, this was actually stated by Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Anthon van Rappard (18 August 1885), also rendered "I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it."