A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

please see also LITTLE things please little minds.
pleasure see BUSINESS before pleasure; he that would go to SEA for pleasure, would go to hell for a pastime.
plum see a CHERRY year a merry year.
An old POACHER makes the best gamekeeper

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  c 1390 CHAUCER Physician’s Tale 1. 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 T. FULLER Church Hist. Britain IX. iii. Alwayes set a—to catch a—; and the greatest dear­stealers, make the best Parke-keepers. 1878 R. JEFFERIES 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 v. CANNING 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 T. SHARPE 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.’ ■ guile; wrong-doers
  

pocket see SHROUDS have no pockets.
point see POSSESSION is nine points of the law.
poison see one man’s MEAT is another man’s poison.
poke see you should KNOW a man seven years before you stir his fire.
policy see HONESTY is the best policy.
politeness see CIVILITY costs nothing; PUNCTUALITY is the politeness of princes.
POLITICS makes strange bedfellows
Politics has long been considered a plural noun; its use with a singular verb is comparatively recent. A well-established variant of ADVERSITY makes strange bedfellows.

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  1839 P. HONE Diary 9 July (1927) I. 404 Party politics, like poverty, bring men ‘acquainted with strange bedfellows’. 1870 C. D. WARNER My Summer in Garden (1871) 187 The Doolittle raspberries have sprawled all over the strawberry-beds: so true is it that politics makes strange bed-fellows. 1936 M. MITCHELL Gone with Wind lviii. Ashley Wilkes and I are mainly responsible. Platitudinously but truly, politics make strange bedfellows. 1980 P. VAN GREENAWAY Dissident vii. Even enemies have something in common. Statecraft produces strange bedfellows. 1995 Washington Times 31 Mar. A4 Politics makes strange bedfellows, if Mr. Hyde will forgive the unforgivable but irresistible metaphor. ■ associates; politics