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 last, including its inflections. Clear word filter
20 entries
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Last in, first out
Last hired, first fired
Generals always fight the last war
The wife is always the last to know
He who laughs last laughs best
Tough times don't last; tough people do
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
A cobbler should stick to his last
Each generation is better than the last
Good behavior is the last refuge of mediocrity
He who laughs last laughs longest
If you are not first, you are last
It's the last straw that breaks the camel's back
No dream lasts forever
Pain is temporary, failure is forever
Matching variant: Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever