A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

If you want to LIVE and thrive, let the spider run alive

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  1867 Notes & Queries 3rd Ser. XI. 32 The proverb so often used in Kent: ‘He who would wish to thrive Must let spiders run alive.’ 1903 V. S. LEAN Collectanea II. 204 He that would thrive Must let spiders live. 1957 H. P. BECK Folklore of Maine iv. If you want to live and thrive let the spider run alive. "superstition
  

A LIVE dog is better than a dead lion
With allusion to ECCLESIASTES ix. 4 (AV) To him that is joined to all the living, there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

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  c 1390 in Minor Poems of Vernon MS (EETS) 534 Better is a quick [living] and an hol hounde Then a ded lyon . . And better is pouert with godnes Then richesse with wikkedness. 1566 J. BARTHLET Pedigree of Heretics 2^V A lyuing Dogge, is better than a dead Lion. 1798 ‘P. PINDAR’ Tales of Hoy 41 It was a devil of a trick.. but, ‘A living Dog is better than a dead Lion,’ as the saying is. 1864 TROLLOPE Can You forgive Her? II. vii. He had so often told the widow that care killed the cat, and that a live dog was better than a dead lion. 1928 D. H. LAWRENCE Woman who rode Away 132 When the lion is shot, the dog gets the spoil. So he had come in for Katherine, Alan’s lioness. A live dog is better than a dead lion. 1953 ‘G. CULLINGFORD’ Post Mortem iv. I take my walks without following a ball about like a dog. Which reminds me of the old proverb that a live dog is better than a dead lion. “great and small; life
  

They that LIVE longest, see most
Cf. early 14th-cent. Fr. qui vit trop voit, he who lives [long] sees much; 1605-6 SHAKESPEARE King Lear v. iii. 325 We that are young Shall never see so much nor live so long.

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