A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

LEND your money and lose your friend

1474 CAXTON Game of Chess (1883) III. iv. 112 And herof speketh Domas the

philosopher and sayth that my frende borrowed money of me And I haue lost my frende

and my money attones [simultaneously]. 1600–1 SHAKESPEARE Hamlet I. iii. 75

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 1721 J.

KELLY Scottish Proverbs Lend your Money, and lose your Friend. It is not the lending of

our Money that loses our Friend; but the demanding it again. 1960 H. SLESAR Enter

Murderers xiii. You know what they say about lending money, it’s a sure way to lose

friends. borrowing and lending; friends.

lend see also DISTANCE lends enchantment to the view.

lender see neither a BORROWER nor a lender be.

LENGTH begets loathing

1742 C. JARVIS Don Quixote II. II. ix. The rest I omit, because length begets

loathing. a 1895 F. LOCKER-LAMPSON My Confidences (1896) 43 ‘Length begets

loathing.’ I well remember the sultry Sunday evenings when..we simmered through Mr.

Shepherd’s long-winded pastorals. brevity and long-windedness

length see also everyone STRETCHES his legs according to the length of his coverlet.

lengthen see as the DAY lengthens, so the cold strengthens.

The LEOPARD does not change his spots

With allusion to JEREMIAH xiii. 23 (AV) Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the
leopard his spots? A L. equivalent to this proverb is lupus pilum mutat, non mentem, the wolf
changes his coat, not his nature.

1546 J. BALE First Examination of Anne Askewe 38 Their olde condycyons wyll

they change, whan the blackemoreœne change hys skynne, and the catte of the moun-

tayne [leopard] her spottes. 1596 SHAKESPEARE Richard II I. i. 174 Rage must be