I've already written that I intensely dislike "The Secret," the marketing phenomenon that claims that if you get your head shot off or suffer from cancer, it's your own darn fault for not thinking the right thoughts.
There's an entertaining article on Slate.com by Emily Yoffe, about what happened when she tried following The Secret's method of positive thinking, and she points out one of The Secret's many flaws, which becomes a lesson in how not to qoute. Yoffee writes:
"The book is dotted with quotations from great men of history that supposedly back up The Secret's assertions. Take this one from Winston Churchill: "You create your own universe as you go along." Something about this struck me as sounding not terribly Churchillian. I looked it up and it turned out Churchill did write it, but it was his mocking characterization of the metaphysical twits of his day."
She also points out, "Apparently the universe has a language-processing disorder and doesn't comprehend standard English usage of the words don't, not, and no. So, as the book explains, if you summon the universe by saying, 'I don't want to spill something on this outfit,' the universe translates this as, 'I want to spill something on this outfit.' If only Rhonda Byrne, the television producer who is the author of the book and creator of the DVD, had been there to counsel those negative authors of the Ten Commandments!"