A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

the elephant said when he danced among the chickens. self-preservation

EVERY man has his price

1734 W. WYNDHAM in Bee VIII. 97 ‘It is an old Maxim, that every Man has his

Price,’ if you can but come up to it. 1798 W. COXE Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole I.

lxiv. The political axiom generally attributed to him [Walpole].. was perverted by leaving

out the word those... He ascribed to the interested views of themselves.. the declaration of

pretended patriots, of whom he said, ‘All those men have their price.’ 1845 G. P. R.

JAMES Smuggler I. x. ‘You can do nothing with Mowle. He never took a penny in his

life.’ ‘Oh, every man has his price.’ 1949 N. MAILER Naked & Dead II. xi. It was the

sort of deal his father might have pulled. ‘Every man has his price.’ 2000 ‘C. AIRD’

Little Knell xiv. 162 ‘Howard Air’s accountants, sir, assure us that all their clients are

men and women of unimpeachable integrity.’ ‘No such thing,’ came back Leeyes smartly.

‘Everyone’s got their price.’ bribery and corruption

EVERY man is the architect of his own fortune

Although attributed to Bacon in quot. 1991, this was a saying of the Roman censor Appius
Claudius Caecus (4th-3rd cent. BC) : PSEUDO-SALLUST Ad Caesarem Senem i. sed res
docuit id verum esse, quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae, but
experience has shown what Appius said in his verses to be true, that each man is the architect
of his own fortune.

1533 N. UDALL Flowers for Latin Speaking (1560) 24 A prouerbiall spekyng. ..

Euery man.. is causer of his own fortune. 1649 MILTON Eikonoklastes III. 542 They in

whomsoeuer these vertues dwell.. are the architects of thir own happiness. 1707 J.

DUNTON Athenian Sport 454 We are.. architects of our own fortune. 1818 S. FERRIER

Marriage III. vi. As every man is said to be the artificer of his own fortune, so every one..

had best be the artificer of their own friendship. 1873 Notes & Queries 4th Ser. XII. 514

We have not a commoner saying among us than ‘Every man is the architect of his own

fortune,’ and we have very few much older. 1991 Times 5 June 18 Educationists complain

of the limitations on their resources; but quantifying this in league tables proves the long-

term truth of Bacon’s dictum quisque faber suae fortunae, each the maker of his own

fate. self-help

EVERY man to his taste

Cf. STATIUS Silvae II. ii. 73 sua cuique voluptas, everyone has his own pleasures; Fr.