Cf. [Lucretius De Rerum Natura iv. 637] quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum, what is food to one person may be bitter poison to others.
On bodies meat iz an otherz poizon.
[c 1576 T. Whythorne Autobiography (1961) 203]
That ould moth-eaten Prouerbe‥One mans meate, is another mans poyson.
[1604 Plato's Cap B4]
May I not nauseate the food which you Covet; and is it not even a Proverb, that what is meat to one Man is Poyson to another.
[a 1721 M. Prior Dialogues of Dead (1907) 246]
It is more true of novels than perhaps of anything else, that one man's food is another man's poison.
[1883 Trollope Autobiography x.]
‘I don't see what he sees in her.’ ‘One man's meat is another man's poison.’
[1986 J. S. Scott Knife between Ribs xvi.]
If one man's meat is another man's poison, then by the same token one man's joke is another man's snooze.
[2000 Washington Post 9 Mar. C2]
Related to: idiosyncrasy; taste
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.
