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 life, including its inflections. Clear word filter
68 entries
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Life is a cabaret
Life is just one damn thing after another
Life is not all beer and skittles
Life sucks, and then you die
Take what life gives you
The best things in life aren't things
There's life in the old dog yet
You only go around once in life
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
Anything for a quiet life
Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening
Competition is the life of trade
Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out of it alive
Life is a bitch, and then you die
Life is a dance you learn as you go
Life is a garden
Life is a garden; dig it
Life is a party
Life is a shit sandwich
Life is a soft loam
Life is not a bowl of cherries
Life is not a spectator sport
Life is not meant to be easy
Life is so daily
Life is too short to drink bad wine
Life is too short to wait for someday
Life is tough; wear a helmet
Life without a friend is death without a witness
Live like you mean it
Matching variant: Live life like you mean it