Of US origin: strokes = comforting gestures of approval or congratulation. Quickly picked up and used in a variety of parodic forms, as in a 1974 Volkswagen advertisement: Different Volks for different folks.
The popular saying around P[almer] D[rug] A[buse] P[rogram] is ‘different strokes for different folks’, and that's the basis of the program.
[1973 Houston (Texas) Chronicle Magazine 14 Oct. 4]
Peter sends and receives letters. He dictates everything he writes. I send and receive handwritten letters. I write out everything. Different strokes for different folks.
[1990 A. Stoddard Gift of Letter iii.]
There are many people who box for the sheer joy of it, there are even more who love to watch them do so; it's not my own cuppa—though for many years it was—but what it says here is different strokes for different folks, so let the games begin.
[2002 Washington Post 25 Feb. C2]
Related to: tact; ways and means
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.
Individual likes and dislikes defy explanation, as in They painted their house purple--there's really no accounting for tastes. This expression, first put as no disputing about tastes, dates from the mid-1600s; the present wording was first recorded in
1794. A
mid-20th-century synonym that originated in the American South is
different strokes for different folks. For a far older synonym, see one man's meat.