A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

KEEP your shop and your shop will keep you
Parodied by the American actress Mae West (1892-1980) in the 1937 movie Every Day’s a Holiday: I always say, keep a diary and some day it’ll keep you.
□1605 G. CHAPMAN et al. Eastward Ho A2^V I.. garnished my shop.. with good wholsome thriftie sentences; As, ‘Touchstone, keepe thy shopp, and thy shoppe will keepe thee.’ 1712 ADDISON Spectator 14 Oct. Sir William Turner.. would say, Keep your Shop and your Shop will keep you. 1905 H. G. WELLS Kipps III. iii. A little bell jangled. ‘Shop!’ said Kipps. ‘That’s right. Keep a shop and the shop’ll keep you.’ 1943 S. V. BENET Western Star I. 20 I keep my shop but my shop doth not keep me. Shall I give such chances [of making a fortune] the go-by and walk the roads? 1976 H. KEMELMAN Wednesday Rabbi got Wet vii. ‘When I was home, Dad cared a lot more about the store than he did about me,’ he said bitterly. She nodded. ..’That’s because a store, if you take care of it, it takes care of you. Your father lives from that store, and your grandfather before him.’ "efficiency and inefficiency; money
keep see also a man is known by the COMPANY he keeps; EXPERIENCE keeps a dear school; THREE may keep a secret, if two of them are dead; put your TRUST in God, and keep your powder dry.
keeper see FINDERS keepers (losers weepers).
keeping see FINDING’S keepings.
key see a GOLDEN key can open any door.
kick see CORPORATIONS have neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be damned.
kid see the BLEATING of the kid excites the tiger.
kill see it is the PACE that kills; it is not WORK that kills, but worry.
killed see CARE killed the cat; CURIOSITY killed the cat.
KILLING no murder
Quot. 1657 is the title of a pamphlet asserting that the assassination of Cromwell, the Protector, would be lawful and laudable.
□1657 SEXBY & TITUS (title) Killing noe murder. 1800 M. EDGEWORTH Castle Rackrent p. xliv. In Ireland, not only cowards, but the brave ‘die many times before their death’. There killing is no murder. 1908 Times Literary Supplement 4 June 179 The exception is the share which he took in the conspiracy of Orsini against Napoleon III... It was probably a case to which Holyoake would have applied the doctrine of ‘killing no murder’. 1961 C. COCKBURN View from West vi. The British.. made, in England, propaganda out of the phrase—attributed to the Irish—’killing no murder’, they were not foolish enough to take their own propaganda seriously. ■ violence
killing see also there are more WAYS of killing a cat than choking it with cream; there are more WAYS of killing a dog than choking it with butter; there are more WAYS of killing a dog than hanging it.