English in everyday life
Proverbs
Explore English sayings from most to least frequent in a published American English corpus. Alternate forms are collected together.
About these frequency groups
Groups use full-form occurrence counts in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), recorded in 2016–2017. For a proverb with several forms, we use the highest individual count, since adding overlapping forms could count the same occurrence twice.
These are historical American English corpus counts, not estimates of how often everyone uses a saying today. A zero means no full-form match was recorded. The source’s separate familiarity ratings are retained in the data but do not determine this ordering.
We grouped variants, merged reviewed duplicate entries, and preserved existing editorial wording. The source includes historical and dated sayings; inclusion is not an endorsement.
Expressions containing always, including its inflections. Clear word filter
51 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Question authority
Matching variant: Always question authority
The customer is always right
Nice guys finish last
Matching variant: Nice guys always finish last
There is always room for improvement
There's always a first time
There's always tomorrow
Things are not always what they seem
Bigger is not always better
Hindsight is 20-20
Matching variant: Hindsight is always 20/20
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
There's always room for more
First impressions are important
Matching variant: First impressions are always the best
The grass is always greener on the other side
Always be closing
Every story ends
Matching variant: Stories always end
Generals always fight the last war
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten
There's always a catch
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride
Always leave them wanting more
Always look for the silver lining
Chickens come home to roost
Matching variant: Chickens will always come home to roost
The time is always right to do what is right
The wife is always the last to know
It's five o'clock somewhere
Matching variant: It is always five o'clock somewhere
Once a thief, always a thief
The boss is always right
There's always light at the end of the tunnel
A bad penny always comes back
A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime
Always leave them laughing
It's always darkest before dawn
The woman pays
Matching variant: The woman always pays
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used