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 hard, including its inflections. Clear word filter
23 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
The bigger they are, the harder they fall
Hard cases make bad law
Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse
Matching variant: Live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse
The harder you work, the luckier you get
Go hard or go home
A good woman is hard to find
A hard head, soft heart
A moving target is hard to hit
Hard work never killed anyone
The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory
The hardest work is to go idle
Trying is not enough
Matching variant: Trying hard is not enough
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
A hard head makes a soft behind
Life is tough; wear a helmet
Matching variant: Life is hard; wear a helmet
Number two tries harder
The first five years are the hardest
The first hundred years are the hardest
The hottest fire makes the hardest steel
Tough times call for tough decisions
Matching variant: Hard times call for hard decisions