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 people, including its inflections. Clear word filter
17 entries
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people
You can't please everybody
Matching variant: You can't please all the people all the time
The business of America is business
Matching variant: The chief business of the American people is business
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Guns don't kill people; people kill people
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
You can't fool all the people all the time
Labels are for cans
Matching variant: Labels are for cans, not for people
Tough times don't last; tough people do
It takes all sorts to make a world
Matching variant: It takes all kinds of people to make a world
Keep your nose out of other people's business
The cemetery is full of indispensable people
The voice of the people is the voice of God
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
Be nice to people on your way up, because you'll meet them on your way down
Happy people don't get sick
Never argue with a fool; people might not know the difference
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people
Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise
Matching variant: Some people are weatherwise, but most are otherwise