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 thing, including its inflections. Clear word filter
78 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Some things never change
Every little bit helps
Matching variant: Every little thing counts
Everything in moderation
Matching variant: Moderation in all things
Money isn't everything
Matching variant: Money isn't the only thing
One thing leads to another
The more things change the more they stay the same
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
There is no free lunch
Matching variant: There is no such thing as a free lunch
The play's the thing
All good things must come to an end
There are no stupid questions
Matching variant: There is no such thing as a stupid question
The best things in life are free
A place for everything and everything in its place
Matching variant: There is a time for all things
There are two sides to every story
Matching variant: There are two sides to every thing
It's just stuff
Matching variant: Things are just things
Things are not always what they seem
Little things mean a lot
A mind is a terrible thing to waste
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
All things work together for good
Good things come in small packages
Some things are better left unsaid
Things will get worse before they get better
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
There's no such thing as bad publicity
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's
Matching variant: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's
Some things are better left alone
Things have a way of working out
You can have too much of a good thing
Anything worth doing is worth doing well
Matching variant: If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well