A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

penny see also a BAD penny always turns up; IN for a penny, in for pound; NO penny, no
paternoster.

Like PEOPLE, like priest

With allusion to HOSEA iv. 9 (AV) Like people, like priest.

1589 Pasquil’s Return C3 Like people, like Priest begins now to be verified. 1670 J.

RAY English Proverbs 114 Like priest, like people. ..Always taken in the worse sense.

1893 R. HEATH English Peasant IV. iii. He had so deep a reverence for the clergy, that it

never entered into his mind that perhaps, after all, it was like people, like priest’. 1963

Delaware County Daily Times 17 May 7/2 The President sets the moral standards for the

nation. Like people, like priest.’ Surely our nation is at a low ebb morally. similarity

and dissimilarity

people see also IDLE people have the least leisure; MORE people know Tom Fool than
Tom Fool knows; the VOICE of the people is the voice of God.

perfect see PRACTICE makes perfect.

perish see he who LIVES by the sword dies by the sword.

perjury see JOVE but laughs at lovers’ perjury.

PHYSICIAN, heal thyself

With allusion to LUKE iv. 23 (AV) Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician,
heal thyself. (VULGATE medice cura teipsum.)

c 1400 tr. Honorius of Autun’s Elucidarium (1909) 29 Blynde leches [doctors],

heeleth first youre silf! 1519 J. COLET Sermon to Convocation B5V If you wyll ponder

and loke vpon oure mottis [motes] fyrst take awaye the blockes out of your eies. Hit is an

olde Prouerbe: Phisition heale thy selfe. 1780 T. FRANCKLIN tr. Lucian’s Works I. 320

According to the old adage, ‘physician, cure thyself’. 1875 S. SMILES Thrift ii. How can

a man.. teach sobriety or cleanliness, if he be himself drunken or foul? ‘Physician, heal