The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (408 page)

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OBEY orders, if you break owners
A nautical proverb; for the meaning see quot. 1924.
1782
Letter
30 Nov. in
Proceedings of Massachusetts Hist. Society
(1930) LXIII. 476
You will be safe, though you break orders that would break your owners.
1823
Pilot
vii.
The old rule runs, ‘Obey orders, if you break owners.’
1924
Gipsy of Horn
iii.
What could be sounder than ‘Obey orders, if you break owners’—meaning, do as you're told, even if you know it's wrong.
1976
Death on North Sea
iv.
I was brought up on the old sea maxim, ‘Obey orders if you break owners.’
obedience
It is best to be OFF with the old love before you are on with the new
.
1801
Belinda
I. x.
I can give you my advice gratis, in the formula of an old Scotch song …‘'Tis good to be off with the old love, Before you be on with the new.’
1819
Bride of Lammermoor
III. ii.
It is best to be off wi' the old love Before you be on wi' the new.
1891
Essays in Little
6
Dumas .. met the great man at Marseilles, where .. Alexandre chanced to be ‘on with the new love’ before being completely ‘off with the old’.
1923
Advisory Ben
xxxix.
That proverb about being off with the old love is a very sound one.
1980
Money Stones
III
. vi.
Off with the old and on with the new. Why not just come out with it? Tell her it's all finished.
constancy and inconstancy
;
love

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