KNIGHT Master’s Questions xiii. Nowhere does the devil build his little chapels more
cunningly than close under the shadow of the great temple of Christian liberty. A thing in
itself completely right and good, may be, in its effects on others, completely evil. 1942
M. MARLETT Devil Builds a Chapel (epigraph) No sooner is a temple built to God, but
the Devil builds a chapel hard by. 2001 S. KENDRICK Night Watch iv. 134 ‘I’m
beginning to think there’s great truth in the old saying “Wherever God builds a church,
the devil builds a chapel next door.”’ good and evilGOD helps them that help themselvesCf. AESCHYLUS Fragments 395 God likes to assist
the man who toils; early 15th-cent. Fr. aidez uous, Dieu uos aidera, help yourself, God will
help you.
1545 R. TAVERNER tr. Erasmus’ Adages (ed. 2) 57 Dii facientes adiuuant. The
goddes do helpe the doers. 1551 T. WILSON Rule of Reason S1V Shipmen cal to God for
helpe, and God will helpe them, but so not withstandying, if they helpe them selfes. 1668
R. B. Adagia Scotica 21 Help thy self, and God will help thee. 1736 B. FRANKLIN Poor
Richard’s Almanack (June) God helps them that help themselves. 1892 H. P. LIDDON
Sermons on Some Words of Christ iii. God does not promise us each and all that.. the
ravens shall come to feed us: as the proverb most truly says, He helps them that help
themselves. 1990 C. FREMLIN Listening in Dusk xxvii. A widow of eighty-nine.. had hit
an intruder over the head with the family Bible and sent him flying. ‘The Lord helps
those who help themselves!’ she’d declared, cackling with triumph in front of the
cameras. 2002 Spectator 19 Jan. 33 And what does the future hold? He quotes his
grandmother: ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves’. providence; self-helpGOD is high above, and the tsar is far awayRussian proverb, meaning that a central power is remote from local interests or concerns.
A comparable Chinese saying is the MOUNTAINS are high, and the emperor is far away.
1891 G. KENNAN Siberia and Exile System preface The lot of the ‘unfortunates’ to
whom ‘God is high above and the Tsar is far away.’ 1915 A. C. LAUT Pioneers of Pacific
Coast 34 ‘God is high in the heavens, and the Czar is far away,’ they said. The object was
quick profit, and plundering was the easiest way to attain it. 1970 M. LIEBMAN Russian
Revolution 24 A vast and miserable mass of peasants for whom, as an old Russian saw
had it, God was too high and the Tsar too far away. 1995 B. GRANT In Soviet House of
Culture 5 Russian peasants across Siberia knew their relative independence in the maxim,