As good be an addled egg as an idle bird
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs:
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As good be an addled egg as an idle bird
If I had not bene gathered from the tree in the budde, I should beeing blowne haue proued a blast, and as good it is to bee an addle egge as an idle bird.
[1578 Lyly Euphues I. 325]
As good be an addled Egg, as an idle Bird.
[1732 T. Fuller Gnomologia no. 681]
The chickens are feeling the heat, poor creatures. I'm afraid I gave them a bit of a ticking off. As good be an addled egg, I told them, as an idle bird.
[1974 D. Carter Ghost Writer iii.]
Related to: action and inaction; idleness
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.
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Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. Copyright © 1982, 1992, 1998, 2003, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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