All good things must come to an end
The addition of ‘good’ is a recent development. The earlier forms may be compared with everything has an end.
Ye wote [know] wele of all thing moste be an ende.
[c 1440 Partonope of Blois (EETS) l. 11144]
All worldly thinges haue an ende (excepte the housholde wordes, betwene man and wife).
[1562 G. Legh Accidence of Armoury 182]
All Things have an End, and a Pudden [a kind of sausage] has two.
[1738 Swift Polite Conversation i. 85]
All things must have an end, and the grand caravan, in time, came to its end.
[1857 H. H. Riley Puddleford Papers xxiii.]
All good things come to an end. The feast was over.
[1924 ‘D. Vane’ Scar xxv.]
For more than a decade, Roy Kramer reigned as the most powerful figure in college athletics—not just in the Southeastern Conference but arguably the entire nation. But all good things must come to an end, and that end is now.
[2002 Washington Times 17 Mar. C12]
Related to: finality; good things
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.





