The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (416 page)

c
1220
Hali Meidenhad
(EETS) 23
Man seith that eise maketh theof.
1387
tr.
Higden's Polychronicon
(1879) VII. 379
At the laste the bischop seide to hym, ‘Me thenke that opportunitie makethe a thefe.’
1623
Remains concerning Britain
(ed. 3) 275
Opportunity makes the thief.
1670
English Proverbs
129
Opportunity makes the thief …Therefore, masters .. ought to secure their moneys and goods under lock and key, that they do not give .. a temptation to steal.
1835
Doctor
III. cv.
Opportunity, which makes thieves, makes lovers also.
1979
Daedalus
Summer 107
A child steals from the sleeping woman's pocket, acting out the proverb ‘Opportunity makes a thief.’
honesty and dishonesty
;
opportunity, taken

 
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Fortune
occurs instead of
opportunity
in earlier forms of the saying. Several quotations below represent slightly different ideas based on the original proverb. In quots. 1809 and 1981, Opportunity is said to knock once or more, but in other quotations, once only. Cf. early 15th-cent Fr.
il n'est chance qui ne retourne
, there is no opportunity which comes back again.
1567
Bandello
216
Fortune once in the course of our life, dothe put into our handes the offer of a good torne.
1809
Port Folio
(Philadelphia) Nov. 431
Fortune knocks once, at least, at every man's door.
1889
C. G. Gordon
iii.
Fate, it is said, knocks once at every man's door …Gordon had just passed his thirtieth year when Fortune .. knocked at .. the door which was to lead him to fame.
1891
Opportunity in Truth
(NY) 19 Feb. 17
I [Opportunity] knock unbidden once at every gate! If sleeping, wake: if feasting rise before I turn away—[for] I return no more!
1941
Unlawful Occasions
xxiv.
It was an opportunity with a capital O, and if she threw it away it would never come back again. Opportunity never knocks twice at any man's door.
1981
Brock
178
Though opportunity may knock twice, there was no guarantee that it would knock as insistently as now.
opportunity

 
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see also
ENGLAND'S difficulty is Ireland's opportunity
;
MAN'S extremity is God's opportunity
.

 
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see
DREAMS go by contraries
.

 
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