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 everything, including its inflections. Clear word filter
38 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Everything happens for a reason
Winner take all
Matching variant: Winner take everything
You can't have everything
Everything in moderation
Money isn't everything
Perception is reality
Matching variant: Perception is everything
What goes up must come down
Matching variant: Everything that goes up must come down
Don't believe everything you read
Winning isn't everything
A place for everything and everything in its place
There are two sides to every story
Matching variant: There are two sides to everything
Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
All that glitters is not gold
Matching variant: Everything that glitters is not gold
First impressions are important
Matching variant: First impressions are everything
You can't fix everything
Everything you know is wrong
Appearances are everything
Presentation is everything
Anything worth doing is worth doing well
Matching variant: Everything worth doing is worth doing well
Not everything that counts can be counted
All things come to those who wait
Matching variant: Everything comes to those who wait
Everything must come to an end
Everything is for the best
Grades aren't everything
It's all a racket
Matching variant: Everything is a racket
Ninety percent of everything is crap
Plans are nothing, planning is everything
There is an App for everything
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used