[Ads-l] "If you don't know where you're going..."

[Jonathan Lighter]

This may well have been inspired by Alice's exchange with the Cheshire Cat,
and it is now popularly and mistakenly attributed directly to Lewis
Carroll.

The exchange in the book is wryly nonsensical:

`Cheshire Puss,' she began.... `Would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to go from here?"
 "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get _somewhere_," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that,'"said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

 The proverb, however, clearly maintains that if you plan poorly, you
shouldn't complain about the poor results.

1944 _Montpelier Evening Argus_ (Oct. 28) 5: Quoting an old oriental
proverb, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you
there."

1958 _Wellsville [N.Y.] Daily Reporter_ (Oct. 10) 8: "If you don't know
where you're going any road will get you there."

1980   Herb Cohen _You Can Negotiate Anything_ (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle
Stuart) 216: As the Koran says, "If you don't know where you are going, any
road will get you there."

1980 Joe Fox _Trapped in the Organization_ (L.A.: Price/Stern/Sloan) 42:
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."
--Lewis Carroll    Corollary 1: "If you don't know where you are going,
you'll wind up someplace else." - Lawrence Peter     Corollary 2: Planning:
15 people in a car going 90 miles an hour, and everyone is looking out the
rear view window.

The databases suggest it gained traction only during the 1960s.

The 1980 ex. is the earliest attribution I find to Lewis Carroll.


JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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