A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

LOOKERS-ON see most of the game
Recently also often with onlooker(s).

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  1529 J. PALSGRAVE in Acolastus (EETS) p. xxxviii. It fareth between thee and me as it doth between a player at the chess and a looker on, for he that looketh on seeth many draughts that the player considereth nothing at all. 1597 BACON Essays ‘Of Followers’ 7^V To take aduise of friends is euer honorable: For lookers on many times see more then gamesters. 1666 G. TORRIANO Italian Proverbs III As the English say, The stander by sees more than he who plays. 1850 F. E. SMEDLEY Frank Fairlegh vii. Remembering the old adage, that ‘lookers-on see most of the game,’ I determined.. to accompany him.
  

1983 M. GILBERT Black Seraphim vi. They say that the onlooker sees most of the game. It’s not a very happy game that’s being played here at the moment. 1998 ‘C. AIRD’ Stiff News (2000) iii. 29 So it fell out that Mrs Maisie Carruthers, still too frail to attend the funeral, but not too immobile to get to the window of her room at the Manor, became the onlooker who saw most of the game. 1999 ‘H. CRANE’ Miss Seeton’s Finest Hour xix. 164 Mrs. Morris, it was clear, did not suspect that her warm regard for the works manager was no secret from her assistant—an assistant who by training was an acute observer. Was not another adage that the looker-on saw most of the game? ■ observation
lord see EVERYBODY loves a lord; NEW lords, new laws.
What you LOSE on the swings you gain on the roundabouts
A fairground metaphor used in a variety of forms.

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  1912 P. CHALMERS Green Days & Blue Days 19 What’s lost upon the roundabouts we pulls up on the swings. 1927 Times 24 Mar. 15 By screwing more money out of taxpayers he diminishes their savings, and the market for trustee securities loses on the swings what it gains on the roundabouts. 1978 G. MOORE Farewell Recital 129 There are compensations: what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. And let’s face it, a cup of tea or a cup of coffee are all very well but they are not so much fun as polygamy. ^winners and losers