APAD: Know on which side your bread is buttered

Meaning:

   To be aware of which side of a conflict it is in your interests to be on.

 

Background:

   This proverbial saying is first found in John Heywood's 1546 glossary A

   Dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe

   tongue:

 

     Thou farest to well (quoth he) but thou art so wood [crazy],

     Thou knowst not who doth ye harm, who doth ye good

     Yes yes (quoth she) for all those wyse words vttred,

     I knowe on whiche syde my breade is buttred.

 

   Heywood spent most of his working life at the court of the Tudor monarchs of

   England. The factionalism between the Protestant and Catholic supports was

   intense. It was certainly a time to be clear where one's interests lay and

   which horse to back - getting it wrong could be fatal. No better time to coin

   a phrase like `I know which side my bread is buttered'.

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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I guess schizophrenia must be common in espionage circles, i.e., a good mole

must struggle often with where they belong and which side their loyalty lies.

In Ha Jin's novel "A Map of Betrayal," Gary Shang, the top Chinese spy,

graduated Tsinghua, followed the U.S. Army as a translator, then worked for the

CIA, had a second family in Virginia, and delivered vital intelligence to Mao

and Zhou throughout the Cold War before being exposed, a career spanning almost

40 years. Ditched by the motherland and facing an American court, he pleaded

that he loved both countries. Some might say he tried to have his bread buttered

on both sides. He was condemned and, 63 years old, killed himself in jail.