A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

dismount see he who RIDES a tiger is afraid to dismount.

dispose see MAN proposes, God disposes.

DISTANCE lends enchantment to the view

1799 T. CAMPBELL Pleasure of Hope I. 3 Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint

appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?—‘Tis distance lends

enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue. 1827 T. HOOD Poems

(1906) 78 What black Mont Blancs arose, Crested with soot and not with snows. ..I fear

the distance did not ‘lend enchantment to the view’. 1901 C. FITCH Captain Jinks II. 118

‘I wish you’d taike me hout of the second row and put me in the front.’.. ‘You forget the

old adage,.. “Distance lends enchantment.” ‘ 1974 T. SHARPE Porterhouse Blue xviii. As

ever with Lady Mary’s affections, distance lent enchantment to the view, and.. she was

herself the intimate patroness of this idol of the media. absence

ditch see when the BLIND lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

DIVIDE and rule

Government is more easily maintained if factions are set against each other, and not
allowed to unite against the ruler. A common maxim (in Latin divide et impera, in German
entzwei und gebiete), it should not (pace quot. 1732) be laid at the door of the Italian political
philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), who in fact denounced this principle. Cf. 1588
tr. M. Hurault’s Discourse upon Present State of France 44 It hath been alwaies her [Catherine
de Medici’s] cus-tome, to set in France, one against an other, that in the meane while shee
might rule in these diuisions.

1605 J. HALL Meditations I. 109 For a Prince.. is a sure axiome, Diuide and rule.

1732 SWIFT Poems III. 805 As Machiavel taught ’em, divide and ye govern. 1907

Spectator 20 Apr. 605 The cynical maxim of ‘Divide and rule’ has never clouded our

relations with the daughter-States. 1979 D. WILLIAMS Genesis & Exodus ii. Matters

concerning the estate were put in the hands of a secretary and a steward who were

responsible not to Benson but to the Governors. But ‘divide and rule’ was not in his

nature. power; rulers and ruled