When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life; making lemonade is turning them into something positive or desirable.
Origins
The sentiment has often been expressed in varying words. Its first known print use, as attributed to Christian anarchist writer Elbert Hubbard in 1909 in Literary Digest, reads: "A genius is a man who takes the lemons that Fate hands him and starts a lemonade-stand with them." He also used it in a 1915 obituary he penned and published for dwarf actor Marshall Pinckney Wilder. The obituary, entitled The King of Jesters, praises Wilder's optimistic attitude and achievements in the face of his disabilities:
"He was a walking refutation of that dogmatic statement, Mens sana in corpore sano. His was a sound mind in an unsound body. He proved the eternal paradox of things. He cashed in on his disabilities. He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand."
Although the first two known uses in print are by Hubbard, many modern authors attribute the expression to Dale Carnegie who used it in his 1948 book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Carnegie's version reads:
"If You Have a Lemon, Make a Lemonade."
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