The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (301 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
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KILLING no murder
Quot. 1657 is the title of a pamphlet asserting that the assassination of Cromwell, the Protector, would be lawful and laudable.
1657
(title)
Killing noe murder.
1800
Castle Rackrent
p. xliv.
In Ireland, not only cowards, but the brave ‘die many times before their death’. There killing is no murder.
1831
Adventures of Younger Son
II. xxix.
Arabs, with whom, if precedents and time can make a thing lawful, killing is no murder.
1908
Times Literary Supplement
4 June 179
The exception is the share which he took in the conspiracy of Orsini against Napoleon III … It was probably a case to which Holyoake would have applied the doctrine of ‘killing no murder’.
1961
View from West
vi.
The British .. made, in England, propaganda out of the phrase—attributed to the Irish—‘killing no murder’, they were not foolish enough to take their own propaganda seriously.
violence

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