Cry over spilt milk

A commonly used metaphor for dwelling pointlessly over past misfortunes, usually in the form of don’t cry or no use crying over spilt milk. Its earliest citation, from a collection of proverbs written by James Howell in 1659, was in the form of “no weeping over shed milk”. Because Howell’s collection supposedly comprised well-known proverbs, the OED believes it may well be much older. Jonathan Swift was the first to use the precise words “cry over spilt milk” in Polite Conversations (1738) when he wrote, “Tis a folly to cry over spilt milk”.