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 good, including its inflections. Clear word filter
102 entries
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
better late than never
Doing something after a delay is better than not doing it at all.
No good deed goes unpunished
good fences make good neighbours
Clear boundaries between people keep their relationship peaceful.
The best defense is a good offense
No news is good news
All good things must come to an end
If it feels good, do it
A good man is hard to find
If it's good enough, it's good enough
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
Any publicity is good publicity
Do well by doing good
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
All things work together for good
Good things come in small packages
It's an ill wind that blows no good
Confession is good for the soul
Only the good die young
It's better to be lucky than good
The only good Indian is a dead Indian
A nod is as good as a wink
Best is not good enough
You have to take the bad with the good
Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse
You can have too much of a good thing
You can't keep a good man down
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is
One good turn deserves another
Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser
A good woman is hard to find
Close enough is good enough
Good enough is not good enough
Good news travels fast
Good pitching beats good hitting
It's a great life if you don't weaken
Matching variant: It's a good life if you don't weaken