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 never, including its inflections. Clear word filter
113 entries
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
Forgive your enemies, but remember their names
Matching variant: Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names
God is good, but never dance in a small boat
Good, better, best: never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best
If you keep your mouth shut, you won't put your foot in it
Matching variant: If you keep your mouth shut, you will never put your foot in it
It's better to be a has-been than a never-was
It's never too late to do the right thing
It's never too late until it's too late
Keep conscience clear; then never fear
Listeners never hear any good of themselves
Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains
Never argue with a fool; people might not know the difference
Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel
Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk
Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins
Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day
Never let facts stand in the way of a good story
Never make predictions, especially about the future
Never marry for money, you can borrow it cheaper
Never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn
Never say never; never say always
Never sell America short
Never spend your money before you have it
Never wake a sleeping lion
Old soldiers never die; young ones do
Once seen, never forgotten
Opportunity never knocks twice
The arch never sleeps
The unaimed arrow never misses
There was never a good knife made of bad steel
What you've never had you never miss
Women and elephants never forget
You can never do merely one thing
You can't fail unless you quit
Matching variant: You never lose until you quit
You can't kill shit
Matching variant: Shit never dies
You can't know what you don't know
Matching variant: You never know what you don't know