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Dr. Mardy Grothe is a retired psychologist, management consultant, and platform speaker, author of six "word and language" books, and creator of Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations, the world's largest online database of metaphorical quotations. Dr. Mardy―as he is known to his many fans around the globe―is one of America's most beloved quotation anthologists.

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If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.

If you can't be kind, at least be vague.

An aphorism is a pithy observation that attempts to communicate a truth about the human experience, often with a dash of wit. History's greatest thinkers and writers have viewed the aphorism as a potent tool, and it is remarkable how many of their most memorable observations have been introduced with the biggest little word in the human language: If. These ifferisms, as they have been dubbed by quotation anthologist Dr. Mardy Grothe, demonstrate the powerful role that hypothetical and conditional thinking play in our lives.

This novel compendium of wisdom, wit, and wordplay presents nearly two thousand quotations that all begin with the word if. Alongside history's most famous sayings, readers will find—and often learn the fascinating story behind—such modern classics as "If you build it, they will come" and "If anything can go wrong, it will." In chapters on sex, love, sports, politics, advice, gender dynamics, and more, quotation lovers will savor scintillating observations from the usual suspects—Twain, Wilde, Shaw, Emerson, and Franklin—as well as scores of contemporary wits and wordsmiths.

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Ifferisms

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

If Anything Can Go Wrong, It Will

Classic Ifferisms

In 1911, the American writer and publisher Elbert Hubbard—best known as the author of the inspirational story "A Message to Garcia"—aroused controversy when he suggested that he was the original author of a popular American sentiment:

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon,or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor,though he builds his house in the woods,the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Quotation researchers were quickly on the case and discovered that, in an 1855 journal entry, Ralph Waldo Emerson had written something similar: "If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods." You will notice, though, that there is no mention of a mousetrap.

In 1889, seven years after Emerson's death, two California women, Sarah Yule and Mary Keene, compiled a book of quotations, titled it Borrowings, and arranged for the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco to publish it. The book attributed the mousetrap observation—exactly as it appears above—to Emerson. In 1912, a year after Hubbard's claim of authorship, Sarah Rule said that she heard Emerson make the remark in an 1871 lecture he delivered in San Francisco. She was sixteen at the time and had attempted to faithfully record the observation in a notebook. We'll never know with certainty how Emerson phrased the thought, but it is generally agreed that Emerson, and not Hubbard, was the sentiment's original author. The saying enjoys exalted status in the world of quotations—a classic homage to American ingenuity. As often happens with quotations, it got simplified over time and most people today are familiar with this more streamlined version:

If a man can make a better mousetrap,the world will beat a path to his door.

Excerpted from Ifferismsby Mardy Grothe Copyright © 2009 by Mardy Grothe. Excerpted by permission.
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