REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD
Be patient, vengeance will be all the more satisfying if you take your time in getting back at someone.
The modern wording of this phrase is often thought to come from the eighteenth-century French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos, as la vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid.
In fact, the phrase does not appear in the original novel and features only in the later adaptations.
The theme of revenge has featured in art since the early Greek dramas; the most famous example in English is perhaps Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
From Judy Parkinson, Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas, Michael O’Mara Books Limited
