The story
No one knows who first said it in these exact words. Word sleuths have chased it for years and keep finding the idea far older than the saying.
The most famous wish of all belongs to King Midas. In the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Midas is offered any reward he likes and asks that whatever he touches turn to gold. A twig turns to gold, then a stone, then the roses in his garden. Then his food and drink turn to gold, and he wishes he had never asked.
In 1852, the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne retold the tale for children in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. In his version, Midas reaches out to comfort his little daughter, and she turns to gold as well.
Old fables carried the same warning. In one of Aesop’s, a herdsman asks for something, gets exactly that, and finds it is the last thing he wanted.
The saying boils all of it down to plain advice: think twice about the wish, because it might come true.
