“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” was made up by a Christian preacher with weirdly messianic-Jewish ideas directly spinning off the well-known phrase “blood is thicker than water.” Possibly also inspired by this theology/ethnography work from 1898. It was not The Original.
“Jack of all trades” is the original phrase. “Master of none” is a snarky comeback. “But oftentimes better than master of one” is a snarky comeback to THAT.
“Curiosity killed the cat” has an interesting history: centuries ago, the phrase was “care kills the cat,” where “care” means worry or fretting. Anxiety is a killer. “Care” became “curiosity” sometime in the 1800s, and “but satisfaction brought it back” seems to have sprung up very soon after that version became popular. People started making that snarky rejoinder within like 10 or 20 years. It’s not “the original,” but it grew up almost in tandem with the original.
“The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese” is first attested on Usenet.
















