One man's meat is another man's poison

1. What is good for one person may be bad for another; what is pleasant to one person may be unpleasant to another.

Idioms and Phrases

What is good for or enjoyed by one is not necessarily so for someone else. This adage, first recorded in 1576, is so well known it is often shortened, as in Pat loves to travel to remote areas but that's not for Doris—one man's meat, you know. Also see no accounting for tastes.

Example Sentences

Famously, one man's meat is another man's poison, and that much more for comparisons across species.

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Try and remember the old cliches - 'one man's meat is another man's poison' and 'you're never going to please all of the people all of the time'.

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For example, if, instead of saying that tastes are different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let off a proverb, and say, That what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison; or else, Every one as they like, as the good man said when he kissed his cow; everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids.

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Again, as to what are called nuisances, to wit offensive smells, sounds, etc., it is more difficult to determine, on the ground that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

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"That which is one man's meat, is another man's poison," is a proposition that ought to be allowed in all particulars, where the opinion is concerned, as well as in eating and drinking.

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