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 one, including its inflections. Clear word filter
88 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
One thing leads to another
It takes one to know one
Two heads are better than one
Let's face facts
Matching variant: One must face facts
If you've seen one, you've seen them all
Rome wasn't built in a day
Matching variant: Rome was not built in one day
Each one teach one
One hand washes the other
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
There's always room for more
Matching variant: There's always room for one more
One man's meat is another man's poison
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
One step forward, two steps back
There's more than one way to skin a cat
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
Matching variant: One shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth
The only good Indian is a dead Indian
Matching variant: The only good Indian is a dead one
Time waits for no one
His word is his bond
Matching variant: One's word is his bond
One is the loneliest number
One picture is worth a thousand words
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
Matching variant: Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness
One man's trash is another man's treasure
The one who dies with the most toys wins
You can have too much of a good thing
Matching variant: One can have too much of a good thing
Better the devil you know than the one you don't
Dance with the one who brung you
Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration
Matching variant: Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration
One good turn deserves another
Two can live as cheaply as one
If it isn't one thing, it's another
Lightning never strikes the same place twice
Matching variant: Lightning never strikes twice in one place
Nobody likes a smart-ass
Matching variant: No one likes a show-off
Nobody likes a whiner
Matching variant: No one likes a whiner
Old friends are the best friends
Matching variant: An old friend is better than two new ones