- skip - Brewer’s

Devil Sick would be a Monk (The)

.

Dœmon languebat, monachus bonus esse volebat;

Sed cum convaluit, manet ut ante fuit.”

“When the Devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;

When the Devil got well, the devil a monk was he.”

Said of those persons who in times of sickness or danger make pious resolutions, but forget them when danger is past and health recovered.

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Devil and the Deep Sea (Between the)
Devil and Tom Walker (The)
Devil catch the Hindmost (The)
Devil in Dublin City (The)
Devil looking Over Lincoln. (The)
Devil loves Holy Water (As the)
Devil-may-care (A)
Devil must be Striking (The) (German)
Devil on the Neck (A)
Devil rides on a Fiddlestick (The)
Devil Sick would be a Monk (The)
Devil to Pay and no Pitch Hot (The)
Devil (A)
Devil’s Advocate (The)
Devil’s Apple
Devil’s Arrows (Yorkshire)
Devil’s Bird (The)
Devil’s Bones
Devil’s Books
Devil’s Cabinet (The)
Devil’s Candle