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 try, including its inflections. Clear word filter
19 entries
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
These are the times that try men's souls
You're never too old to learn
Matching variant: Never too old to try something new
Don't bullshit a bullshitter
Matching variant: Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter
Don't knock it until you've tried it
Matching variant: Don't knock it until you try it
When all else fails, read the directions
Matching variant: When all else fails, try reading the instructions
You can't con a con
Matching variant: Don't try to con a con
You never know what you can do until you try
Don't try to catch a falling knife
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
Don't make something out of nothing
Matching variant: Don't try to make something out of nothing
Don't try to be someone you are not
Don't try to save the world
Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs
If at first you don't succeed, try reading the instructions
You can't kid a kidder
Matching variant: Don't try to kid a kidder
You can't saw sawdust
Matching variant: Don't try to saw sawdust