A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

marry see also BETTER to marry than to burn.
martin see the ROBIN and the wren are God’s cock and hen.
martyr see the BLOOD of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
mass see MEAT and mass never hindered man.
Like MASTER, like man
Man here is in the sense of ‘servant’. The female equivalent is like mistress like maid. Cf. PETRONIUS Satyricon lviii. qualis dominus, talis et servus, as is the master, so is the servant; early 14th-cent. Fr. lon dit a tel seigneur tel varlet, it is said, for such a lord such a manservant.

• 
  1530 J. PALSGRAVE L^claircissement de la Langue Frangaise 120^V Suche maystre suche man. 1538 T. ELYOT Dict. s.v. Similes, A lewde [foolish] servaunt with an yll master. .. Lyke master lyke man. 1620 T. SHELTON tr. Cervantes’ Don Quixote II.X. The Prouerbe be true that sayes, ‘like master, like man’, and I may add, ‘like lady, like maid’. Lady Hercules was fine, but her maid was still finer. 1979 M. G. EBERHART Bayou Road iv. ‘Like master, like man,’ Marcy’s father had said bitterly .. of the disappearance of an entire set of Dresden plates. 1990 ‘C. AIRD’ Body Politic (1991) xii. 131 ‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Finch, ‘but she just doesn’t like men.’ Like mistress, like maid, was what Sloan’s grandmother would have said to that, but Sloan himself, wise in his own generation, kept silent. ■ employers and employees
  

master see also the EYE of a master does more work than both his hands; FIRE is a good servant but a bad master; JACK is as good as his master; JACK of all trades and master of none; NO man can serve two masters.
What MATTERS is what works

• 
  1998 Department of Transport, Environment, and the Regions Modernising Local Government: Improving Local Services through Best Value ii. 9 There is no reason why services should be delivered directly if other more efficient means are available. What matters is what works. 2001 Spectator 3 Nov. 22 Given that the unions had all bought into ‘what matters is what works’, it struck me as confrontational. "efficiency and inefficiency