A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

1472 E. PASTON Letter 16 May in Paston Letters (1971) I. 635 I am in serteyn the

contrary is true—yt is nomore but that he can not plese all partys. 1616 T. DRAXE

Adages 45 One can hardly please all men. 1844 RUSKIN Journal 30 Apr. in Diaries

1835–47 (1956) 274 At Ward’s about window—nothing done. Gastineau came up and

don’t like mine: can’t please everybody. 1981 Daily Telegraph 16 May 18 The old adage,

‘you can’t please everyone’, holds good. conduct; public relations

PLEASE your eye and plague your heart

c 1617 A. BREWER LovesickKing (1655) III. E3V She may please your eye a little..

but vex your heart. 1748 SMOLLETT Roderick Random II. xl. Many a substantial

farmer.. would be glad to marry her; but she was resolved to please her eye, if she should

plague her heart. 1829 COBBETT Advice to Young Men III. cxxic. ‘Please your eye and

plague your heart’ is an adage that want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a

thousand years ago. 1876 I. BANKS Manchester Man III. vi. But I will marry him,

mamma—I’ll please my eye, if I plague my heart. appearance; beauty; love

please see also LITTLE things please little minds.

pleasure see BUSINESS before pleasure; he that would go to SEA for pleasure, would go
to hell for a pastime.

plum see a CHERRY year a merry year.

An old POACHER makes the best gamekeeper

c 1390 CHAUCER Physician’s Tale 1. 83 A theef of venysoun, that hath forlaft His

likerousnesse [depravity] and al his olde craft, Kan kepe a forest best of any man. 1695 T.

FULLER Church Hist. Britain IX. iii. Alwayes set a—to catch a—; and the greatest dear-

stealers, make the best Parke-keepers. 1878 R. JEFFERIES Gamekeeper at Home ix.

There is a saying that an old poacher makes the best gamekeeper, on the principle of

setting a thief to catch a thief. 1970 v. CANNING Great Affair iii. What the Church

needed, possibly, was a good leavening of sinners in its ministry, on the principle that

poachers make the best gamekeepers. 1978 T. SHARPE Throwback i. 5 ‘You’ll have

heard the saying that a poacher makes the best gamekeeper?.. Well, Dodd’s the reverse.

He’s a gamekeeper who would have made the best poacher.’ guile; wrong-doers

pocket see SHROUDS have no pockets.