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 money, including its inflections. Clear word filter
34 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Time is money
Money isn't everything
Your money or your life!
Money can't buy happiness
Money doesn't grow on trees
Money is power
A penny saved is a penny earned
Matching variant: Money saved is money earned
Money is the root of all evil
Money never sleeps
Money is money
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
Get the money, honestly if you can
Money is a cushion
Money is the sinews of war
Money makes the mare go
Money means freedom
Money runs the world
Money talks, bullshit walks
My money, my rules
Never marry for money, you can borrow it cheaper
Never spend your money before you have it
Rich or poor, it's good to have money
There are some things that money can't buy
There is no such thing as too much money
Where there's muck there's money
You can only spend a dollar once
Matching variant: You can only spend money once