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 time, including its inflections. Clear word filter
53 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Time is money
Time flies
Time marches on
Peace in our time
No time like the present
Time heals all wounds
Better luck next time
Stop and smell the roses
Matching variant: Take time to smell the flowers
You can't please everybody
Matching variant: You can't please everyone all the time
A place for everything and everything in its place
Matching variant: There is a time and place for everything
There's always a first time
Time is on your side
a stitch in time saves nine
Fixing a small problem early prevents a much bigger one later.
Time flies when you're having fun
Forever is a long time
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Time waits for no one
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
Time is a great healer
A week is a long time in politics
The third time's a charm
The time is always right to do what is right
They'll do it every time
Time wounds all heels
You can't fool all the people all the time
Good pitching beats good hitting
Matching variant: Good pitching beats good hitting every time
Lost time is never found again
Time is sacred
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig
Procrastination is the thief of time
Progress comes in small steps
Matching variant: Progress comes one step at a time