The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (178 page)

see
(noun) hasty CLIMBERS have sudden falls
;
PRIDE goes before a fall
;
(verb) the APPLE never falls far from the tree
;
BETWEEN two stools one falls to the ground
;
the BIGGER they are, the harder they fall
;
when the BLIND lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch
;
the BREAD never falls but on its buttered side
;
a REED before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall
;
if the SKY falls we shall catch larks
;
when THIEVES fall out, honest men come by their own
;
as a TREE falls, so shall it lie
;
UNITED we stand, divided we fall
.

 
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see
COMMON fame is seldom to blame
.

 
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Cf. ST. AUGUSTINE
Scala Paradisi
8 (Migne 40, col. 1001)
vulgare proverbium est
,
quod nimia familiaritas parit contemptum
, it is a common proverb, that too much familiarity breeds contempt.
c
1386
Tale of Melibee
1. 1685
Men seyn that ‘over-greet hoomlynesse [familiarity] engendreth dispreisynge’.
1539
Garden of Wisdom
II. 4
^V
Hys specyall frendes counsailled him to beware, least his ouermuche familiaritie myght breade him contempte.
1654
Comment on Ruth
176
With base and sordid natures familiarity breeds contempt.
1869
He knew He was Right
II. lvi.
Perhaps, if I heard Tennyson talking every day, I shouldn't read Tennyson. Familiarity does breed contempt.
1928
Phoenix II
(1968) 598
We say .. Familiarity breeds contempt …That is only partly true. It has taken some races of men thousands of years to become contemptuous of the moon.
1979
Sense of Order
ii.
Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt and Jones' treatment of the Chinese tradition is not very far from contempt.
1997
Washington Times
18 Mar. A19
After three days of Senate hearings on Anthony Lake's nomination .. a variation of the old adage ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ seemed at work …
familiarity

 
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The saying was invented by Al Scalpone, a professional commercial-writer, and was used as the slogan of the Roman Catholic Family Rosary Crusade by Father Patrick Peyton (P. Peyton,
All for Her
, 1967). The crusade began in 1942 and the slogan was apparently first broadcast on 6 Mar. 1947 during the radio programme
Family Theater of the Air
. The Crusade in Britain started in 1952, and the expression now has many (often humorous) variant forms.
1948
St. Joseph Mag.
(Oregon) Apr. 3
‘More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of’, and ‘The family that prays together stays together.’ Such religious themes are hardly what one would expect to hear propounded over the air waves of our modern radio.
1949
Catholic Digest
June 98
‘The family that prays together stays together.’ That is what Father Peyton has made it his business to remind you of every week.
1954
Parents' Magazine
Feb. 119
The family that plays together stays together.
1980
Times
28 Nov. 8
One [Texas] hoarding said ..‘A family that prays together stays together.’
1980
Spy's Wife
xxi.
The family that spies together, sties together. Old Cockney Russian proverb.
1996
Washington Post
15 Mar. B3
First, Mother Teresa opined on the divorce of Princess Di and Prince Charles …‘The family that prays together stays together; and if you stay together, you will love one another with the same love with which God loves each one of us.’
Family

 
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