Similar Phrases
A syntactically similar expression is "Don't shoot the piano player; he's doing the best he can." It originated around 1860 in the Wild West of the United States. During his 1883 tour of the United States, Oscar Wilde saw this saying on a notice in a Leadville, Colorado, saloon. This phrase (like many witty sayings of that era) is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but neither Wilde nor Twain ever claimed authorship.
Alternative expressions:
- "Killing the messenger"
- "Attacking the messenger"
- "Blaming the bearer of bad tidings"
Read more about this topic: Shooting The Messenger
Famous quotes containing the words similar and/or phrases:
“A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve months before, they had come together in similar jollity. For the time Paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all, and they adored none other than themselves.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“For proverbs are the pith, the proprieties, the proofs, the purities, the elegancies, as the commonest so the commendablest phrases of a language. To use them is a grace, to understand them a good.”
—John Florio (c. 1553–1625)