The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (436 page)

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Authors: John Andrew Simpson,

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pleasure

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BUSINESS before pleasure
;
he that would go to SEA for pleasure, would go to hell for a pastime
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plum

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a CHERRY year a merry year
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An old POACHER makes the best gamekeeper

c
1390
Physician's Tale
l. 83
A theef of venysoun, that hath forlaft His likerousnesse [depravity] and al his olde craft, Kan kepe a forest best of any man.
1695
Church Hist. Britain
IX
. iii.
Alwayes set a—to catch a—; and the greatest dear-stealers, make the best Parke-keepers.
1878
Gamekeeper at Home
ix.
There is a saying that an old poacher makes the best gamekeeper, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief.
1970
Great Affair
iii.
What the Church needed, possibly, was a good leavening of sinners in its ministry, on the principle that poachers make the best gamekeepers.
1978
Throwback
i. 5
‘You'll have heard the saying that a poacher makes the best gamekeeper?..Well, Dodd's the reverse. He's a gamekeeper who would have made the best poacher …’