The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (11 page)

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never let the SUN go down on your anger
.

 
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a HUNGRY man is an angry man
.

 
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ASK a silly question and you get a silly answer
;
a CIVIL question deserves a civil answer
;
a SOFT answer turneth away wrath
.

 
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the CHURCH is an anvil which has worn out many hammers
.

 
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1749
Memoires of Woman of Pleasure
II. 133
It was going by the right door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one …I told him of it: ‘Pooh,’ says he ‘my dear, any port in a storm.’
1821
Pirate
I.iv.
As the Scotsman's howf [refuge] lies right under your lee, why, take any port in a storm.
1965
Dover Three
ii.
It was not quite the sort of company with which Dover would mix from choice but, as the jolly sailors say, any port in a storm.
1983
Monsieur Pamplemousse
iv.
On the principle of any port in a storm he made a dive for the nearest cubicle.
necessity
;
trouble

 
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Commonly known as
Murphy's Law
, the saying has numerous variations. It is said to have been invented by George Nichols in 1949. Nichols was then a project manager working in California for the American firm of Northrop, and developed the maxim from a remark made by a colleague, Captain E. Murphy, of the Wright Field-Aircraft Laboratory. The contexts of the early quotations appear to support this explanation:
1955
Aviation Mechanics Bulletin
May-June 11 Murphy's Law: If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly, someone will install it that way.
1956
Scientific American
Apr. 166
Dr. Schaefer's observation confirms this department's sad experience that editors as well as laboratory workers are subject to Murphy's Laws, to wit: I. If something can go wrong it will, [etc.].
1958
Product Engineering
21 Apr. 32
If anything can go wrong with an experiment—it will.
1961
&
Computer Programming Fundamentals
viii.
What we desire is the presentation of the information in .. an accurate and complete form … Recalling ‘Murphy's law’—‘If something can go wrong or be misinterpreted, it will’—should be enough stimulus for the goals we desire.
1974
New York Times Magazine
8 Sept. 33
‘If anything can go wrong, it will,’ says Murphy's law. In this computer age, the ‘law’ has been helped along by clever con men.
1980
Midnight Men
vii.
Of course, the up train was delayed. There was some vast universal principle. If anything can go wrong it will.
error

 
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