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

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Excellent work, JL. I have received a few requests to explore this
topic, but I have not created a QI article yet. DMP has a great
post-Lewis-Carroll citation.

[ref] 2012, The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, Compiled by Charles
Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, Quote Page 218, Yale
University Press, New Haven. (Verified with hardcopy) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.
1942 M. N. Chatterjee, "Measurement in Education," Social Science 17:
164: "Does this bring us any nearer to the goal which still remains
undefined? Means are easily developed, but without proper
consideration of aims, are not all means equally good? If one does not
know where he is going, any road will take him there."
[End excerpt]

I have also gathered electronic notes for a family of sayings which
flip the final punchline. Your note has inspired me to move forward
and create a QI article for that family.

Garson

On Mon, Mar 2, 2026 at 8:22 AM Jonathan Lighter
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> 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."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org