choke see it is idle to SWALLOW the cow and choke on the tail.choking see there are more WAYS of killing a cat than choking it with cream; there are
more WAYS of killing a dog than choking it with butter.
Never CHOOSE your women or your linen by candlelight1573 J. SANFORDE Garden of Pleasure 51 Choose not a woman, nor linnen clothe
by the candle. 1678 J. RAY English Proverbs (ed. 2) 64 Neither women nor linnen by
candle-light. 1737 B. FRANKLIN Poor Richard’s Almanack (May) Fine linnen, girls and
gold so bright. Chuse not to take by candlelight. 1980 Woman’s Journal Dec. 105 ‘Never
choose your women or your linen by candlelight,’ they used to say: a testimony to the
soft, flattering glow that candles always give. appearance, deceptive; womenchoose see also of two EVILS choose the less.chooser see BEGGARS can’t be choosers.chosen see MANY are called but few are chosen.Christmas see the DEVIL makes his Christmas pies of lawyers’ tongues and clerks’
fingers; a DOG is for life, not just for Christmas; a GREEN Yule makes a fat churchyard.
The CHURCH is an anvil which has worn out many hammersThe saying originated in the reply of the Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza (1519–1605)
to the King of Navarre after the massacre of the Huguenots at Vassy in March 1562. The king
had attempted to excuse the massacre on the grounds of the Protestants’ having provoked the
Duke of Guise and his followers by throwing stones at them.
1853 G. DE FELICE Hist. Protestants of France I. II. v. 156 (tr. Beza to King of
Navarre, 1562) It is the peculiarity of the Church of God.. to endure blows, not to give
them; but yet you will be pleased to remember, that it is an anvil on which many a
hammer has been broken. 1908 A. MACLAREN Acts of Apostles I. 136 The Church is an
anvil which has worn out many hammers and the story of the first collision is, in
essentials, the story of all. 1920 J. BUCHAN Path of King vii. ‘From this day I am an
exile from France so long as it pleases God to make His Church an anvil for the blows of