A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

He TRAVELS fastest who travels alone

Cf. 1854 H. D. THOREAU Walden 78 The man who goes alone can start today; but he who
travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

1888 R. KIPLING Story of Gadsby (1889) 94 Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,

He travels fastest who travels alone. 1921 E. WAUGH Journal 19 June in Diaries (1979)

129 Hale’s gone already. I suppose he will have to. ‘He travels fastest who travels alone’

anyway. 1989 F. KING Reflections in Jaundiced Eye iv. The reason I can ‘do what I do’ is

because I’ve never married. He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for

she. efficiency and ineffiency; independence; travel

tread see FOOLS rush in where angels fear to tread.

As a TREE falls, so shall it lie

One must not change long-established beliefs, etc., in the face of death. With allusion to
ECCLESIASTES xi. 3 (AV) If the tree fall toward the South, or toward the North, in the place
where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

1549 H. LATIMER Seven SermonsIV. M3V Wheresoeuer the tre falleth.. there it

shall reste. 1578 LYLY Euphues I. 308 Where the tree falleth there it lyeth.. and every

ones deathes daye is his domes day. 1678 J. RAY English Proverbs (ed. 2) 296 As a man

lives so shall he die, As a tree falls so shall it lie. 1836 M. SCOTT Cruise of Midge II. ii.

It is of no use. .. As the tree falls, so must it lie—it is a part of my creed. 1937 ‘F.

HEDLEY’ Cavalier of Crime x. 130 ‘No use trying to account for the vagaries of fate, is

it, Inspector? Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie.’ death; fate and fatalism

The TREE is known by its fruit

With allusion to MATTHEW xii. 33 (AV) The tree is known by his fruit.

1528 W. TYNDALE Obedience of Christian Man 88 V Judge the tre by his frute, and

not by his leves. 1597–8 SHAKESPEARE Henry IV, Pt. 1 II. iv. 414 If then the tree may

be known by the fruit.. there is virtue in that Falstaff. 1670 J. RAY English Proverbs 11 A

tree is known by the fruit, and not by the leaves. 1896 J. A. FROUDE Council of Trent iv.

Lutherans said the tree is known by its fruit. Teach a pure faith, and abuses will