Before Steinbeck

Hello Val

Steinbeck's novel is one of my top ten but he nicked the title  ( or to put it more kindly - was inspired by) from Robert Burns

Terri 

The best laid schemes of mice and men

more like this...

...other phrases about:

• Animals

Meaning

The most carefully prepared plans may go wrong.

Origin

From Robert Burns' poem To a Mouse, 1786. It tells of how he, while ploughing a field, upturned a mouse's nest. The resulting poem is an apology to the mouse:

...
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren't alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy.
...

The poem is of course the source for the title of John Steinbeck's 1937 novel - Of Mice and Men.