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 live, including its inflections. Clear word filter
24 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
You have to live with yourself
Man does not live by bread alone
Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse
Two can live as cheaply as one
He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day
Matching variant: He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
Live like you're dying
Man shall not live by bread alone
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used