A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

The PITCHER will go to the well once too often

A warning against pushing one’s luck too far. Cf. early 14th-cent. Fr. tant va pot a eve
qu’il brise, the pot goes so often to the water that it breaks.

1340 Ayenbite of lnwit (EETS) 206 Zuo longe geth thet pot to the wetere: thet hit

comth to-broke hom. 1584 j. WITHALS Dict. (rev. ed.) Bl So oft goeth the pitcher to the

well, that at last it commeth broken home. 1777 N. SHAW Collections of New London

County Hist. Society (1933) I. 223 I shall send down what I have, but dont you think the

Pitcher will go to the well once too often? 1880 Church Times 30 Apr. 275 Some of Mr.

Gladstone’s feats in the way of sweeping obstacles out of his path have been wonderful;

but the proverb tells us that the pitcher which goes oft to the well will be broken at last.

1996 ‘C. AIRD’ After Effects xvi. 187 Superintendent Leeyes would have to be disturbed

on a Saturday all over again. And it was odds on that he wouldn’t like it. That quotation

about the pitcher going to the well once too often had more than a ring of truth to it as far

as the superintendent was concerned. misfortune; persistence

pitcher see also LITTLE pitchers have large ears.

pitchfork see you can DRIVE out Nature with a pitchfork, but she keeps on coming back.

pitied see BETTER be envied than pitied.

PITY is akin to love

1601 SHAKESPEARE Twelfth Night III. i. 119 I pity you.—That’s a degree to love.

1696 T. SOUTHERNE Oroonoko II. i. Do, pity me: Pity’s a-kin to Love. a 1895 F.

LOCKER-LAMPSON My Confidences (1896) 95 They say that Pity is akin to Love,

though only a Poor Relation; but Amy did not even pity me. 1942 ‘C. KINGSTON’

Murder Tunes In (1943) iii. 44 ‘It may not be love—it may be only pity.’ ‘You’re wrong,’

said Mrs. Armitage with the cheerfulness of one discussing something exceedingly

pleasurable. ‘It’s not the pity that is akin to love—it’s love itself.’ love; pity

A PLACE for everything, and everything in its place

1640 G. HERBERT Outlandish Proverbs no. 379 All things have their place, knew

wee how to place them. 1842 MARRYAT Masterman Ready II. i. In a well-conducted