When life gives you lemons, make lemonade
Meaning: Make the best of a bad situation.
Origin: In 1915 the writer Elbert Hubbard praised the actor Marshall Pinckney Wilder, born with dwarfism, as a man who "picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade stand." Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948) made the advice famous: "If you have a lemon, make a lemonade."
Equivalents in French, Spanish, Japanese, and German
- French: Il faut faire de nécessité vertu (literally: One must make virtue of necessity)
- Spanish: Al mal tiempo, buena cara (literally: To bad weather, good face)
- Japanese: 災い転じて福となす (Wazawai tenjite fuku to nasu) (literally: Turn disaster into fortune)
- German: Aus der Not eine Tugend machen (literally: To make a virtue out of necessity)
More proverbs about Challenge
- Necessity is the mother of invention — Difficult situations inspire creative solutions.
- Fortune favors the bold — Taking risks often leads to rewards.
- Strike while the iron is hot — Act quickly when the opportunity presents itself.
- If you can't beat them, join them — If you can't win against something, align with it.
- You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs — Progress requires sacrifice.
- What doesn't kill you makes you stronger — Adversity builds resilience and character.
From our tongue twisters
- 隣の客はよく柿食う客だ (Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da) — A tricky spiral on ka/ki/ku that accelerates as you try to keep the syllables distinct.
- Como poco coco como, poco coco compro. — A bouncy 'co' drill — the word order and meaning flip with each repetition.
- Pepe Pecas pica papas con un pico. ¿Con qué pico pica papas Pepe Pecas? — A bouncy 'p' cluster that accelerates with the question at the end.