The COMPANY makes the feast
1653 I. WALTON Compleat Angler iii. Take this for a rule, you may pick out such
times and such companies, that you may make yourselves merrier,.. for ‘tis the company
and not the charge [expense] that makes the feast. 1911 F. W. HACK-WOOD Good Cheer
xxxii. Epicurus maintained that you should rather have regard to the company with whom
you eat.. than to what you eat. .. This has been crystallised into the terse English proverb,
‘The company makes the feast.’ 1981 ‘J. STURROCK’ Suicide most Foul vi. It is the
company which makes the occasion, not the surroundings. friends; hospitalitycompany see also MISERY loves company; TWO is company, but three is none.
COMPARISONS are odious
Cf. early 14th-cent. Fr. comparaisons sont haÿneuses, comparisons are hateful.
c 1440 J. LYDGATE Minor Poems (EETS) 561 Odious of old been all comparisouns.
1456 Gilbert of Hay’s Prose MS (STS) 282 I will nocht here mak questioun.. quhy [why]
that alwayis comparisoun is odious. c 1573 G. HARVEY Letter-Book (1884) 7 But thai
wil sai, Comparisons ar odius: in deed, as it fals out, thai ar too odious. 1724 SWIFT
Drapier’s Letters X. 82 A Judge.. checked the Prisoner.. taxing him with ‘reflecting on
the court by such a Comparison, because Comparisons were odious’. 1939 G. MITCHELL
Printer’s Error ii. ‘I will study the psychology of pigs instead of that of.. refugees.’
‘Comparisons are odious,’ observed Carey. 2001 P. J. O’ROURKE CEO of Sofa v. 82 And
poets? Comparisons being odious, only a comparison will do to illustrate the odium of
modern poesy. similarity and dissimilarityHe that COMPLIES against his will is of his own opinion still
1678 S. BUTLER Hudibras III. iii. He that complies against his Will, Is of his own
Opinion still; Which he may adhere to, yet disown, For Reasons to himself best known.
1965 M. SPARK Mandelbaum Gate V. No one should submit their mind to another mind:
He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still—that’s my motto. I won’t be
brainwashed. 1985 G. V. HIGGINS Penance for Jerry Kennedy xiii. But Ed Maguire did
what he did against his own convictions. And what they say is true.. ‘A man convinced
against his will is of the same opinion still.’ free will and compulsionCONFESS and be hanged