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{{Short description|Traditional saying that reveals a thought truth}}
{{redirect|Proverbs|the biblical text|Book of Proverbs|other uses|Proverb (disambiguation)}}
{{redirect|Adage}}
{{distinguish|pro-verb|Adige|Adyghe (disambiguation)|Ad Age}}
{{Literature}}
A '''proverb''' (from {{langx|la|proverbium}}) or an '''adage''' is a simple, traditional [[saying]] that expresses a perceived truth based on [[common sense]] or experience. Proverbs are often [[metaphorical]] and are an example of [[formulaic language]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Agrawal |first=Dr K. P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo6tEAAAQBAJ&dq=proverb+(from+Latin:+proverbium)+is+a+simple,+traditional+saying+that+expresses+a+perceived+truth+based+on+common+sense+or+experience&pg=PA12 |title=Tresure Of Book: On Poetries, Ghazals, Proverbs, Riddles, Idioms, Jokes and Quotes |date=2023-02-12 |publisher=Shashwat Publication |isbn=978-93-95362-30-6 |pages=12 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Upadhyay |first=Manish K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GZ-vEAAAQBAJ&dq=proverb+(from+Latin:+proverbium)+is+a+simple,+traditional+saying+that+expresses+a+perceived+truth+based+on+common+sense+or+experience&pg=PA196 |title=General English |date=2023-02-12 |publisher=Rama publication |pages=196 |language=en}}</ref> A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition.<ref name=":0" /> The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1497581 |jstor=1497581 |title=Proverbial Phrases from California |last1=Adams |first1=Owen S. |journal=Western Folklore |date=1949 |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=95–116 |doi=10.2307/1497581|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>[[Arvo Krikmann]], "The Great Chain Metaphor: An Open Sezame for Proverb Semantics?", ''[[Proverbium (journal)|Proverbium:Yearbook of International Scholarship]]'', 11 (1994), pp.&nbsp;117–124.</ref> Collectively, they form a [[folklore genre|genre of folklore]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dundes |first=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g195nUPUC6gC&dq=%22proverb%22+%22genre+of+folklore%22&pg=PA30 |title=Interpreting Folklore |date=1980-08-22 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20240-6 |pages=30 |language=en}}</ref>

Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact.<ref name=":0" /> In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the [[Book of Proverbs]]) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of [[Erasmus]]) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs.<ref name=":0" /> Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to the same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show that cultures in which the Bible is the major spiritual book contain "between three hundred and five hundred proverbs that stem from the Bible",<ref>Wolfgang Mieder (1990), ''Not by bread alone: Proverbs of the Bible'', New England Press, p.&nbsp;12.</ref> whereas another shows that, of the 106 most common and widespread proverbs across Europe, 11 are from the Bible.<ref>Paczolay, Gyula. 1997. ''European Proverbs in 55 Languages''. Veszpre'm, Hungary.</ref> However, almost every culture has its own unique proverbs.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ross |first1=Rosetta E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C4tCCwAAQBAJ&dq=almost+every+culture+has+its+own+unique+proverbs.&pg=PA24 |title=Unraveling and Reweaving Sacred Canon in Africana Womanhood |last2=Amenga-Etego |first2=Rose Mary |date=2015-12-15 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-1-4985-1822-2 |pages=24 |language=en}}</ref>

== Definitions ==
[[Lord John Russell]] ({{Circa|1850}}) observed poetically that a "proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many".<ref>Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. "The wit of one, and the wisdom of many: General thoughts on the nature of the proverb. ''Proverbs are never out of season: Popular wisdom in the modern age'' 3–40. Oxford University Press. p.&nbsp;25.</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Agrawal |first=Dr K. P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo6tEAAAQBAJ&dq=Lord+John+Russell+(c.+1850)+observed+poetically+that+a+%22proverb+is+the+wit+of+one,+and+the+wisdom+of+many.%22&pg=PA13 |title=Tresure Of Book: On Poetries, Ghazals, Proverbs, Riddles, Idioms, Jokes and Quotes |date=2023-02-12 |publisher=Shashwat Publication |isbn=978-93-95362-30-6 |pages=13 |language=en}}</ref> But giving the word "proverb" the sort of definition theorists need has proven to be a difficult task, and although scholars often quote [[Archer Taylor]]'s argument that formulating a scientific "definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking... An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mieder |first=Wolfgang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s0WhBgAAQBAJ&dq=An+incommunicable+quality+tells+us+this+sentence+is+proverbial+and+that+one+is+not.&pg=PA400 |title=Wise Words Pbdirect: Essays on the Proverb |date=2015-02-11 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-54924-6 |pages=400 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mieder |first=Wolfgang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgAbBwAAQBAJ&dq=An+incommunicable+quality+tells+us+this+sentence+is+proverbial+and+that+one+is+not.&pg=PT24 |title=Behold the Proverbs of a People: Proverbial Wisdom in Culture, Literature, and Politics |date=2014-10-30 |publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1-62674-303-8 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Honeck |first=Richard P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8jORqznKfsC&dq=An+incommunicable+quality+tells+us+this+sentence+is+proverbial+and+that+one+is+not.&pg=PT22 |title=A Proverb in Mind: The Cognitive Science of Proverbial Wit and Wisdom |date=2013-05-13 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-1-134-74137-3 |language=en}}</ref> Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial",<ref>Archer Taylor. 1931. ''The Proverb''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p.&nbsp;3.</ref> many students of proverbs have attempted to itemize their essential characteristics.<ref name=":1" />

More constructively, [[Wolfgang Mieder]] has proposed the following definition: "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation."<ref>Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. "The wit of one, and the wisdom of many: General thoughts on the nature of the proverb. Proverbs are never out of season: Popular wisdom in the modern age 3–40. Oxford University Press. p.&nbsp;5.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aPSmBgAAQBAJ&dq=Mieder+has+proposed+the+following+definition,+%22A+proverb+is+a+short,+generally+known+sentence+of+the+folk+which+contains+wisdom,+truth,+morals,+and+traditional+views+in+a+metaphorical,+fixed,+and+memorizable+form+and+which+is+handed+down+from+generation+to+generation%22&pg=PA281 |title=Language Crisis in the Ryukyus: The Price for Being Japanese? |last2=Heinrich |first2=Patrick |date=2015-01-12 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-7346-8 |pages=281 |language=en}}</ref>  To distinguish proverbs from idioms, cliches, etc., Norrick created a table of [[distinctive feature]]s, an abstract tool originally developed for linguistics.<ref>Neil Norrick. 1985. ''How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs''. Amsterdam: Mouton. p.&nbsp;73.</ref> Prahlad distinguishes proverbs from some other, closely related types of sayings: "True proverbs must further be distinguished from other types of proverbial speech, e.g. proverbial phrases, [[Wellerism]]s, maxims, quotations, and proverbial comparisons."<ref>Sw. Anand Prahlad. 1996. ''African-American Proverbs in Context''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p.&nbsp;33.</ref> Based on Persian proverbs, Zolfaghari and Ameri propose the following definition: "A proverb is a short sentence, which is well-known and at times rhythmic, including advice, sage themes and ethnic experiences, comprising simile, metaphor or irony which is well-known among people for its fluent wording, clarity of expression, simplicity, expansiveness and generality and is used either with or without change."<ref>Hassan Zolfaghari & Hayat Ameri. "Persian Proverbs: Definitions and Characteristics". ''Journal of Islamic and Human Advanced Research'' 2(2012) 93–108. At p.&nbsp;107.</ref>

There are many sayings in English that are commonly referred to as "proverbs", such as weather sayings.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Agrawal |first=Dr K. P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo6tEAAAQBAJ&dq=There+are+many+sayings+in+English+that+are+commonly+referred+to+as+%22proverbs%22,+such+as+weather+sayings.&pg=PA14 |title=Tresure Of Book: On Poetries, Ghazals, Proverbs, Riddles, Idioms, Jokes and Quotes |date=2023-02-12 |publisher=Shashwat Publication |isbn=978-93-95362-30-6 |pages=14 |language=en}}</ref> [[Alan Dundes]], however, rejects including such sayings among truly proverbs: "Are weather proverbs proverbs? I would say emphatically 'No!'"<ref>Alan Dundes. 1984. On whether weather 'proverbs' are proverbs. ''Proverbium'' 1:39–46. Also, 1989, in ''Folklore Matters'' edited by Alan Dundes, 92–97. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. At p.&nbsp;45.</ref><ref name=":2" /> The definition of "proverb" has also changed over the years. For example, the following was labeled "A Yorkshire proverb" in 1883, but would not be categorized as a proverb by most today, "as throng as Throp's wife when she hanged herself with a dish-cloth".<ref>A Yorkshire proverb. 1883. ''The Academy''. July 14, no.&nbsp;584. p.&nbsp;30.</ref> The changing of the definition of "proverb" is also noted in [[Turkish language|Turkish]].<ref>Ezgi Ulusoy Aranyosi. 2010. "Atasözü neydi, ne oldu?" ["What was, and what now is, a 'proverb'?"]. ''Millî Folklor: International and Quarterly Journal of Cultural Studies'' 11.88: 5–15.</ref>

In other languages and cultures, the definition of "proverb" also differs from English.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Atindogbe |first1=Gratien G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i_XMDQAAQBAJ&dq=In+other+languages+and+cultures,+the+definition+of+%22proverb%22+also+differs+from+English.&pg=PA76 |title=Proceedings of the 7th World Congress of African Linguistics, Buea, 17-21 August 2012: Volume One |last2=Fogwe |first2=Chibaka, Evelyn |date=2016-12-19 |publisher=Langaa RPCIG |isbn=978-9956-764-38-9 |pages=76 |language=en}}</ref> In the [[Chumburung language]] of Ghana, "''aŋase'' are literal proverbs and ''akpare'' are metaphoric ones".<ref>Gillian Hansford. 2003. Understanding Chumburung proverbs. ''Journal of West African Languages'' 30.1:57–82. At p.&nbsp;64.</ref> Among the [[Edo language|Bini]] of Nigeria, there are three words that are used to translate "proverb": ''ere, ivbe'', and ''itan''. The first relates to historical events, the second relates to current events, and the third was "linguistic ornamentation in formal discourse".<ref>Daniel Ben-Amos. Introduction: Folklore in African Society. ''Forms of Folklore in Africa'', edited by Bernth Lindfors, pp.&nbsp;1–36. Austin: University of Texas. At p.&nbsp;4,&nbsp;5.</ref> Among the [[Balochi language|Balochi]] of Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a word ''batal'' for ordinary proverbs and ''bassīttuks'' for "proverbs with background stories".<ref>Sabir Badalkhan. 2000. "Ropes break at the weakest point": Some examples of Balochi proverbs with background stories. ''Proverbium'' 17:43–69. At p.&nbsp;43.</ref>

There are also language communities that combine proverbs and riddles in some sayings, leading some scholars to create the label "proverb riddles".<ref>John C. Messenger, Jr. Anang Proverb-Riddles. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol.&nbsp;73, No.&nbsp;289 (July–September 1960), pp.&nbsp;225–235.</ref><ref>Finnegan, Ruth. ''Oral Literature in Africa''. The Saylor Foundation, 1982. p.&nbsp;418.</ref><ref>Umoh, S. J. 2007. The Ibibio Proverb{{snd}}Riddles and Language Pedagogy. ''International Journal of Linguistics and Communication'' 11(2), 8–13.</ref>

Another similar construction is an [[idiom]]atic phrase. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a distinction between idiomatic phrase and proverbial expression. In both of them the meaning does not immediately follow from the phrase. The difference is that an idiomatic phrase involves figurative language in its components, while in a proverbial phrase the figurative meaning is the extension of its literal meaning. Some experts classify proverbs and proverbial phrases as types of idioms.<ref>Lexicography: Critical Concepts (2003) R. R. K. Hartmann, Mick R K Smith, {{ISBN|0-415-25365-9}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=x8LpWk9sPOEC&dq=%22proverbial+phrases+are%22&pg=PA303 p.&nbsp;303].</ref>

== Examples ==
{{see also|List of proverbial phrases}}
[[File:Abbaye de Saint-Martin-aux-Bois (Oise) - Eglise Saint-Martin - Miséricorde "Bête à ferrer une oie".jpg|thumb|From the French proverbial phrase "Je me mêle des oies ferrées"{{snd}}"I concern myself/meddle with shoeing geese." From a [[misericord]] at the [[Saint-Martin-aux-Bois|Abbey of Saint Martin aux Bois]] (Oise), France]]
[[File:Plat circulaire - Le renard prêchant les oies.jpg|thumb|"Pearls before Swine", Latin proverb on platter at the Louvre]]
*[[Man's best friend (phrase)|A dog is a man's best friend]]
* [[All that glitters is not gold]]
* [[An Essay on Criticism|A little learning is a dangerous thing]]
* [[A rolling stone gathers no moss]]
* [[wikt: a stitch in time saves nine|A stitch in time saves nine]]
* [[An apple a day keeps the doctor away]]
* [[Don't cross the bridge until you come to it]]
* [[Don't count your chickens before they hatch]]
* [[Don't put all your eggs in one basket]]
* [[Fortune favours the bold]]
* [[Garbage in, garbage out]]
* [[wikt: haste makes waste|Haste makes waste]]
* [[wikt:if the shoe fits, wear it|If the shoe fits, wear it]]
* [[wikt: ignorance is bliss|Ignorance is bliss]]
* [[It ain't over till the fat lady sings]]
* [[Laws of holes|If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.]]
* [[On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog]]
* [[wiktionary:the_early_bird_gets_the_worm|The early bird gets the worm]]
* [[The enemy of my enemy is my friend]]
* [[Golden Rule|Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones]]
* [[With great power comes great responsibility]]
* [[You can't have your cake and eat it]]
* [[wikt:your mileage may vary|Your mileage may vary]]

==Sources==
[[File:Conseil Tenu par les Rats (109010667).jpg|thumb|"Who will bell the cat?", comes from the end of a story.]]

Proverbs come from a variety of sources.<ref>Barbour, Frances M. "Some uncommon sources of proverbs." ''Midwest Folklore'' 13.2 (1963): 97–100.</ref> Some are, indeed, the result of people pondering and crafting language, such as some by [[Confucius]], [[Plato]], [[Baltasar Gracián]], etc. Others are taken from such diverse sources as poetry,<ref>Korosh Hadissi. 2010. A Socio-Historical Approach to Poetic Origins of Persian Proverbs. ''Iranian Studies'' 43.5: 599–605.</ref><ref>p. 164. Bartlotti, Leonard and Raj Wali Shah Khattak. ''Rohi Mataluna: Pashto Proverbs''. Peshawar, Pakistan: Interlit.</ref> stories,<ref>Thamen, Hla. 2000. ''Myanmar Proverbs in Myanmar and English''. Yangon: Pattamya Ngamank Publishing.</ref> songs, commercials, advertisements, movies, literature, etc.<ref name="Doyle, Charles Clay 2012">Doyle, Charles Clay, Wolfgang Mieder, [[Fred R. Shapiro]]. 2012. ''The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs.'' New Haven: Yale University Press.</ref> A number of the well known sayings of Jesus, Shakespeare, and others have become proverbs, though they were original at the time of their creation, and many of these sayings were not seen as proverbs when they were first coined. Many proverbs are based on stories, often the end of a story. For example, the proverb "[[Belling the cat|Who will bell the cat]]?" is from the end of a story about the mice planning how to be safe from the cat.<ref>p. 68. Kent, Graeme. 1991. ''Aesop's Fables.'' Newmarket, UK: Brimax.</ref>

Some authors have created proverbs in their writings, such as [[J.R.R. Tolkien]],<ref name="Michael Stanton 1996"/><ref name="Trokhimenko, Olga 2003"/> and some of these proverbs have made their way into broader society. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is credited for a proverb regarding a lobster in a pot, which he wrote about in his book series ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]''.<ref>Peter Unseth. 2014. A created proverb in a novel becomes broadly used in society: "‛Easily in but not easily out', as the lobster said in his lobster pot." ''Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies'' [http://www.crossroads.uwb.edu.pl/category/issue-22014/page/2/ online access] {{webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150526192406/http://www.crossroads.uwb.edu.pl/category/issue-22014/page/2/ |date=2015-05-26}}</ref> In cases like this, deliberately created proverbs for fictional societies have become proverbs in real societies. In a fictional story set in a real society, the movie ''Forrest Gump'' introduced "Life is like a box of chocolates" into broad society.<ref>p. 70, Winick, Stephen. 1998. ''The Proverb Process: Intertextuality and Proverbial Innovation in Popular Culture.'' University of Pennsylvania: PhD dissertation.</ref> In at least one case, it appears that a proverb deliberately created by one writer has been naively picked up and used by another who assumed it to be an established Chinese proverb, [[Ford Madox Ford]] having picked up a proverb from [[Ernest Bramah]], "It would be hypocrisy to seek for the person of the Sacred Emperor in a Low Tea House."<ref>Hawthorn, Jeremy, ‘Ernest Bramah: Source of Ford Madox Ford’s Chinese Proverb?’ Notes and Queries, 63.2 (2016), 286–288.</ref>

The proverb with "a longer history than any other recorded proverb in the world", going back to "around 1800 BC"<ref>p. 5. Alster, Bendt. 1979. An Akkadian and a Greek proverb. A comparative study. ''Die Welt des Orients'' 10. 1–5.</ref> is in a Sumerian clay tablet, "The bitch by her acting too hastily brought forth the blind".<ref>p. 17. Moran, William L. 1978a. An Assyriological gloss on the new Archilochus fragment. ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' 82. 17–19.</ref><ref>Unseth, Peter. "The World’s Oldest Living Proverb Discovered Thriving in Ethiopia." ''Aethiopica'' 21 (2018): 226–236.</ref> Though many proverbs are ancient, they were all newly created at some point by somebody. Sometimes it is easy to detect that a proverb is newly coined by a reference to something recent, such as the Haitian proverb "The fish that is being microwaved doesn't fear the lightning".<ref>p. 343, Linda Tavernier-Almada. 1999. Prejudice, power, and poverty in Haiti: A study of a nation's culture as seen through its proverbs. ''Proverbium'' 16:325–350.</ref> Similarly, there is a recent [[Maltese language|Maltese]] proverb, ''wil-muturi, ferh u duluri'' "Women and motorcycles are joys and griefs"; the proverb is clearly new, but still formed as a traditional style couplet with rhyme.<ref>p. 125. Aquilina, Joseph. 1972. ''A Comparative Dictionary of Maltese Proverbs.'' Malta: Royal University of Malta.</ref> Also, there is a proverb in the [[Kafa language]] of Ethiopia that refers to the forced military conscription of the 1980s, "...the one who hid himself lived to have children."<ref>Mesfin Wodajo. 2012. ''Functions and Formal and Stylistic Features of Kafa Proverbs''. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.</ref> A Mongolian proverb also shows evidence of recent origin, "A beggar who sits on gold; Foam rubber piled on edge."<ref>p. 22, Janice Raymond. ''Mongolian Proverbs: A window into their world.'' San Diego: Alethinos Books.</ref> Another example of a proverb that is clearly recent is this from [[Sesotho]]: "A mistake goes with the printer."<ref>Rethabile M Possa-Mogoera. The Dynamism of Culture: The Case of Sesotho Proverbs." ''Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies'' Vol. 20 (2) October.</ref>  A political candidate in Kenya popularised a new proverb in his 1995 campaign, ''Chuth ber'' "Immediacy is best". "The proverb has since been used in other contexts to prompt quick action."<ref>p. 68. Okumba Miruka. 2001. ''Oral Literature of the Luo''. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.</ref> Over 1,400 new English proverbs are said to have been coined and gained currency in the 20th century.<ref>Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, Fred R. Shapiro. 2012. ''The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs.''  Yale University Press.</ref>

This process of creating proverbs is always ongoing, so that possible new proverbs are being created constantly. Those sayings that are adopted and used by an adequate number of people become proverbs in that society.<ref>p. 5. Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. ''Proverbs are never out of season.'' New York: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2017. Futuristic Paremiography and Paremiology: A Plea for the Collection and Study of Modern Proverbs. ''Poslovitsy v frazeologicheskom pole: Kognitivnyi, diskursivnyi, spoostavitel’nyi aspekty''. Ed. T.N. Fedulenkova. Vladimir: Vladimirskii Gosudarstvennyie Universitet, 2017. 205–226.</ref>
[[File:A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.jpg|thumb|A rolling stone gathers no moss.]]

The creation of proverbs in many parts of the world during the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] showed how quickly proverbs and anti-proverbs can be created.<ref>Haas, Heather A. "The Proverbs of a Pandemic: The Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic Viewed through the Lens of Google Trends." ''Journal of American Folklore'' 135, no. 535 (2022): 26-48.</ref><ref>Mawere, Munyaradze. "Epistemological and Moral Aspects of Selected Shona Proverbial Lore: Implications for Health and Safety in the Face of Covid-19 and Other Such Pandemics." ''Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress: Inspiration from Chinua Achebe’s Proverbs'' (2021): 363-377.</ref><ref>Raji-Oyelade, Aderemi. "COVID-19 (Post) Proverbials: Twisting the Word Against the Virus." ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' 39, no. 1 (2022): 224-244.</ref>

== Interpretations ==
Interpreting proverbs is often complex, but is best done in a context.<ref>Jesenšek, Vida. 2014. Pragmatic and stylistic aspects of proverbs. ''Introduction to Paremiology: A Comprehensive Guide to Proverb Studies'', ed. by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga, pp. 133–161. Warsaw & Berlin: DeGruyter Open.</ref> Interpreting proverbs from other cultures is much more difficult than interpreting proverbs in one's own culture. Even within English-speaking cultures, there is difference of opinion on how to interpret the proverb "[[A rolling stone gathers no moss]]." Some see it as condemning a person that keeps moving, seeing moss as a positive thing, such as profit; others see the proverb as praising people that keep moving and developing, seeing moss as a negative thing, such as negative habits.<ref>p. 224,225. Flavell, Linda and roger Flavell. 1993. ''The Dictionary of Proverbs and Their Origins''. London: Kyle Cathie.</ref>

Similarly, among [[Tajik language|Tajik]] speakers, the proverb "One hand cannot clap" has two significantly different interpretations. Most see the proverb as promoting teamwork. Others understand it to mean that an argument requires two people.<ref>p. 158. Evan Bell. 2009. ''An analysis of Tajik proverbs''. Masters thesis, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.</ref> In an extreme example, one researcher working in Ghana found that for a single Akan proverb, twelve different interpretations were given.<ref>Sjaak van der Geest. 1996. The Elder and His Elbow: Twelve Interpretations of an Akan Proverb. ''Research in African Literatures'' Vol. 27, No. 3: 110–118.</ref> Proverb interpretation is not automatic, even for people within a culture: Owomoyela tells of a Yoruba radio program that asked people to interpret an unfamiliar Yoruba proverb, "very few people could do so".<ref>Owomoyela, Oyekan. 1988. ''A Kì í : Yorùbá proscriptive and prescriptive proverbs''. Lanham, MD : University Press of America.</ref> Siran found that people who had moved out of the traditional Vute-speaking area of Cameroon were not able to interpret Vute proverbs correctly, even though they still spoke Vute. Their interpretations tended to be literal.<ref>pp. 236–237. Siran, Jean-Louis. 1993. Rhetoric, tradition, and communication: The dialectics of meaning in proverb use. ''Man'' n.s. 28.2:225–242.</ref>

Children will sometimes interpret proverbs in a literal sense, not yet knowing how to understand the conventionalized metaphor.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lamport |first=Mark A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B6xVDwAAQBAJ&dq=Children+will+sometimes+interpret+proverbs+in+a+literal+sense,+not+yet+knowing+how+to+understand+the+conventionalized+metaphor.&pg=PA45 |title=Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South |date=2018-06-01 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-7157-9 |pages=45 |language=en}}</ref> Interpretation of proverbs is also affected by injuries and diseases of the brain, "A hallmark of schizophrenia is impaired proverb interpretation."<ref name="Michael Kiang 2007">Michael Kiang, et al, Cognitive, neurophysiological, and functional correlates of proverb interpretation abnormalities in schizophrenia. ''Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society'' (2007), 13, 653–663. [Futuristic paremiography and paremiology: a plea for the collection and study of modern proverbs. Online access]</ref>

==Features==
===Grammatical structures===
Proverbs in various languages are found with a wide variety of grammatical structures.<ref>See Mac Coinnigh, Marcas. Syntactic Structures in Irish-Language Proverbs. ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' 29, 95–136.</ref> In English, for example, we find the following structures (in addition to others):
* Imperative, negative – [[Flogging a dead horse|Don't beat a dead horse.]]
* Imperative, positive – [[wikt:if the shoe fits, wear it|If the shoe fits, wear it]]!
* Parallel phrases – [[Garbage in, garbage out]].
* Rhetorical question – Is the Pope Catholic?
* Declarative sentence – [[Birds of a feather flock together]].

However, people will often quote only a fraction of a proverb to invoke an entire proverb, e.g. "All is fair" instead of "All is fair in love and war", and "A rolling stone" for "A rolling stone gathers no moss."

The grammar of proverbs is not always the typical grammar of the spoken language. Elements are often moved around, to achieve rhyme or focus.<ref>Sebastian J. Floor. 2005. Poetic Fronting in a Wisdom Poetry Text: The Information Structure of Proverbs 7. ''Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages'' 31: 23–58.</ref>

Another type of grammatical construction is the [[wellerism]], a speaker and a quotation, often with an unusual circumstance, such as the following, a representative of a wellerism proverb found in many languages: "The bride couldn't dance; she said, 'The room floor isn't flat.'"<ref>p. 20, 21. Unseth, Peter, Daniel Kliemt, Laurel Morgan, Stephen Nelson, Elaine Marie Scherrer. 2017. Wellerism proverbs: Mapping their distribution. ''GIALens'' 11.3: [https://www.diu.edu/documents/gialens/Vol11-3/Unseth-WPs.pdf website]</ref>

Another type of grammatical structure in proverbs is a short dialogue:
* Shor/Khkas (SW Siberia): "They asked the camel, 'Why is your neck crooked?' The camel laughed roaringly, 'What of me is straight?'"<ref>p. 176. Roos, Marti, Hans Nugteren, Zinaida Waibel. 2006. Khakas and Shor proverbs and proverbial sayings. In ''Exploring the Eastern Frontiers of Turkic'', ed by Marcel Erdal and Irina Nevskaya, pp. 157–192. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.</ref>
* [[Armenian language|Armenian]]: "They asked the wine, 'Have you built or destroyed more?' It said, 'I do not know of building; of destroying I know a lot.'"<ref>p. 135. Sakayan, Dora. 1999. Reported and direct speech in proverbs: On Armenian dialogue proverbs. Proverbium 16: 303–324.</ref>
* Bakgatla (a.k.a. [[Tswana language|Tswana]]): "The thukhui jackal said, 'I can run fast.' But the sands said, 'We are wide.'" ([[Botswana]])<ref>p. 246. Mitchison, Naomi and Amos Kgamanyane Pilane. 1967. The Bakgatla of South-East Botswana As Seen through Their Proverbs. ''Folklore'' Vol. 78, No. 4: 241–268.</ref>
* [[Bambara language|Bamana]]: "'Speech, what made you good?' 'The way I am,' said Speech. 'What made you bad?' 'The way I am,' said Speech." (Mali)<ref>p. 221. Kone, Kasim. 1997.'' Bamana verbal art: An ethnographic study of proverbs''. PhD dissertation, Indiana University.</ref>

[[File:Ochsenfurt Hauptstraße 60 Schuster.jpg|thumb|"The cobbler should stick to his last" in German. It is also an old proverb in English, but now "[[last]]" is no longer known to many.]]

===Conservative language===
[[File:Latijnse tekst boven portaal.JPG|left|thumb|Latin proverb over doorway in Netherlands: "No one attacks me with impunity"]]
Because many proverbs are both poetic and traditional, they are often passed down in fixed forms. Though spoken language may change, many proverbs are often preserved in conservative, even [[Archaism|archaic]], form. "Proverbs often contain archaic... words and structures."<ref>p. 21. Norrick, Neal R. "Subject area, terminology, proverb definitions, proverb features." ''Introduction to paremiology: A comprehensive guide to proverb studies'', edited by Hrisztalina Hristova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga, (2014): 7-27.</ref> In English, for example, "betwixt" is not commonly used, but a form of it is still heard (or read) in the proverb "There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." The conservative form preserves the meter and the rhyme. This conservative nature of proverbs can result in archaic words and grammatical structures being preserved in individual proverbs, as has been widely documented, e.g. in Amharic,<ref>p. 691. Michael Ahland. 2009. From topic to subject: Grammatical change in the Amharic possessive construction. ''Studies in Language'' 33.3 pp. 685–717.</ref> [[Nsenga language|Nsenga]],<ref>p. 64. Christopher J. Pluger. 2014. ''Translating New Testament proverb-like sayings in the style of Nsenga proverbs.'' Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics MA thesis.</ref> Polish,<ref>Szpila, Grzegorz. 2001. Archaic lexis in Polish Proverbs. In Władysław Witalisz (ed.), ''"And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche": Studies on Language and Literature in Honour of Professor Dr. Karl Heinz Göller'', pp. 187–193. Kraków 2001.</ref> [[Venda language|Venda]],<ref>pp. 33-37. Mafenya, Livhuwani Lydia. ''The proverb in Venda: a linguistic analysis.'' MA Diss. University of Johannesburg, 1994,</ref> [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]],<ref>p. 36. Watson, Wilfred GE. ''Classical Hebrew poetry: a guide to its techniques.'' A&C Black, 2004.</ref> [[Giriama]],<ref>p. xviii. Taylor, W(illiam) E(rnest). 1891. ''Giriyama Vocabulary and Collections.'' London: [[Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge]].</ref> [[Georgian (language)|Georgian]],<ref>Tea Shurgaia (2020) The Proverbial Wisdom of a Georgian Language Island in Iran, Iranian Studies, 53:3–4, 551–571, {{doi|10.1080/00210862.2020.1716189}}</ref> [[Karachay-Balkar]],<ref>Ketenchiev, M.B., Akhmatova M.A., and Dodueva A.T. 2022. “Archaic Vocabulary in Karachay-Balkar Paroemias”. ''Polylinguality and Transcultural Practices'', 19 (2), 297–307. {{doi|10.22363/2618-897X-2022-19-2-297-307}} [in Russian]</ref> [[Hausa language|Hausa]],<ref>Merrick, Captain G. 1905. Hausa Proverbs. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., p. 6,7.</ref> [[Uzbek language|Uzbek]],<ref>Madiyorova Valida Quvondiq qizi. Analysis of Archaic Words in the Structure of English and Uzbek Proverbs. ''EPRA International Journal of Research and Development'' 6.4.2021: 360–362.</ref> [[Budu language|Budu]] of [[Democratic Republic of Congo|Congo]],<ref>{{cite thesis |page=113 |last=Frieke-Kappers |first=C. |date=2007 |title=The Creative Use of Genre Features Continuity and Change in Patterns of Language Use in Budu, a Bantu Language of Congo (Kinshasa) |type=PhD thesis |publisher=[[Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]]}}</ref> [[Kazakh language|Kazakh]].<ref>p. 109, Omarbekova, Gulnara and Erik Aasland, eds., ''Contemporary Kazakh Proverb Research: Digital, Cognitive, Literary, and Ecological Approaches.'' (2022), New York: Peter Lang.</ref> 

In addition, proverbs may still be used in languages which were once more widely known in a society, but are now no longer so widely known. For example, English speakers use some non-English proverbs that are drawn from languages that used to be widely understood by the educated class, e.g. "C'est la vie" from French and "[[Carpe diem]]" from Latin.

Proverbs are often handed down through generations. Therefore, "many proverbs refer to old measurements, obscure professions, outdated weapons, unknown plants, animals, names, and various other traditional matters."<ref>p. 33. Wolfgang Mieder. 2014. ''Behold the Proverbs of a People: Proverbial Wisdom in Culture, Literature, and Politics.'' Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.</ref>
Therefore, it is common that they preserve words that become less common and archaic in broader society.<ref>Issa O. Sanusi and R.K. Omoloso. The role of Yoruba proverbs in preserving archaic lexical items and expressions in Yoruba.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100716115043/http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/publications/omoloso/THE%20ROLE%20OF%20YORUBA%20PROVERS%20IN%20PRESERVING%20ARCHAIC%20LEXICAL%20ITEMS%20AND%20EXPRESSIONS%20IN%20YORUBA.htm]</ref><ref>Eme, Cecilia A., Davidson U. Mbagwu, and Benjamin I. Mmadike. "Igbo proverbs and loss of metaphors." PREORC Journal of Arts and Humanities 1.1 (2016): 72–91.</ref>  Archaic proverbs in solid form{{snd}}such as murals, carvings, and glass{{snd}}can be viewed even after the language of their form is no longer widely understood, such as an [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-French]] proverb in a [[stained glass]] window in York.<ref name="Lisa Reilly 2016">Lisa Reilly & Mary B. Shepard (2016) "Sufferance fait ease en temps": word as image at St Michael-le-Belfrey, York. ''Word & Image'' 32:2, 218–234. {{doi|10.1080/02666286.2016.1167577}}.</ref>

===Borrowing and spread===
Proverbs are often and easily translated and transferred from one language into another. "There is nothing so uncertain as the derivation of proverbs, the same proverb being often found in all nations, and it is impossible to assign its paternity."<ref>p. ii. Thomas Fielding. 1825. Select proverbs of all nations. New York: Covert.</ref>
[[File:Притча о слепых.jpeg|290px|thumb|''[[The Blind Leading the Blind]]'' by [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder]]]]
Proverbs are often borrowed across lines of language, religion, and even time. For example, a proverb of the approximate form "No flies enter a mouth that is shut" is currently found in Spain, France, Ethiopia, and many countries in between. It is embraced as a true local proverb in many places and should not be excluded in any collection of proverbs because it is shared by the neighbors. However, though it has gone through multiple languages and millennia, the proverb can be traced back to an ancient Babylonian proverb<ref>p. 146. Pritchard, James. 1958. ''The Ancient Near East'', vol. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.</ref> Another example of a widely spread proverb is "A drowning person clutches at [frogs] foam", found in Peshai of Afghanistan<ref>p. 67. Ju-Hong Yun and Pashai Language Committee. 2010. On a mountain there is still a road. Peshawar, Pakistan: InterLit Foundation.</ref> and Orma of Kenya,<ref>p. 24. Calvin C. Katabarwa and Angelique Chelo. 2012. Wisdom from Orma, Kenya proverbs and wise sayings. Nairobi: African Proverbs Working Group. http://www.afriprov.org/images/afriprov/books/wisdomofOrmaproverbs.pdf</ref> and presumably places in between.

Proverbs about one hand clapping are common across Asia,<ref>Kamil V. Zvelebil. 1987. The Sound of the One Hand. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 107, No. 1, pp. 125–126.</ref> from Dari in Afghanistan<ref>p. 16, Edward Zellem. 2012. Zarbul Masalha: 151 Aghan Dari proverbs.</ref> to Japan.<ref>p. 164. Philip B. Yampolsky, (trans.). 1977. The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings. New York, Columbia University Press.</ref> Some studies have been done devoted to the spread of proverbs in certain regions, such as India and her neighbors<ref>Ludwik Sternbach. 1981. Indian Wisdom and Its Spread beyond India. Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 101, No. 1, pp. 97–131.</ref> and Europe.<ref>Matti Kuusi; Marje Joalaid; Elsa Kokare; Arvo Krikmann; Kari Laukkanen; Pentti Leino; Vaina Mālk; Ingrid Sarv. Proverbia Septentrionalia. ''900 Balto-Finnic Proverb Types with Russian, Baltic, German and Scandinavian Parallels''. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (1985)</ref> An extreme example of the borrowing and spread of proverbs was the work done to create a corpus of proverbs for [[Esperanto]], where all the proverbs were translated from other languages.<ref>Fiedler, Sabine. 1999. Phraseology in planned languages. ''Language problems and language planning'' 23.2: 175–187.</ref>

It is often not possible to trace the direction of borrowing a proverb between languages. This is complicated by the fact that the borrowing may have been through plural languages. In some cases, it is possible to make a strong case for discerning the direction of the borrowing based on an artistic form of the proverb in one language, but a prosaic form in another language. For example, in Ethiopia there is a proverb "Of mothers and water, there is none evil." It is found in [[Amharic]], [[Alaba-K'abeena language|Alaaba language]], and [[Oromo language|Oromo]], three languages of Ethiopia:
* Oromo: ''Hadhaa fi bishaan, hamaa hin qaban.''
* Amharic: ''Käənnatənna wəha, kəfu yälläm.''
* Alaaba: ''Wiihaa ʔamaataa hiilu yoosebaʔa''<ref>p. 92. Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2009. ''Máakuti t'awá shuultáa: Proverbs finish the problems: Sayings of the Alaaba (Ethiopia)''. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.</ref>
The Oromo version uses poetic features, such as the initial ''ha'' in both clauses with the final ''-aa'' in the same word, and both clauses ending with ''-an''. Also, both clauses are built with the vowel ''a'' in the first and last words, but the vowel ''i'' in the one syllable central word. In contrast, the Amharic and Alaaba versions of the proverb show little evidence of sound-based art.

However, not all languages have proverbs. Proverbs are (nearly) universal across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some languages in the Pacific have them, such as Māori with whakataukī.<ref>Brougham, Aileen E., Alexander Wyclif Reed, and Tīmoti Sam Kāretu. ''The Reed book of Maori proverbs.'' Reed Books, 1999.</ref> Other Pacific languages do not, e.g. "there are no proverbs in [[Kilivila]]" of the [[Trobriand Islands]].<ref>p. 277. Senft, Gunter. 2010. ''The Trobriand Islanders' Ways of Speaking.'' (Volume 27 of Trends in Linguistics. Documentation.) Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.</ref>  In the New World, there are almost no proverbs: "While proverbs abound in the thousands in most cultures of the world, it remains a riddle why the Native Americans have hardly any proverb tradition at all."<ref>p. 108. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004. ''Proverbs: A handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group.''</ref> Although, "as Mieder has commented . . . the reason for the visible lack of proverbs was probably the inability of foreign researchers to identify proverbial utterances among those peoples."<ref>p. 313. Hakamies, Pekka. 2016. "Proverbs – A Universal Genre?", in ''Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond'', ed. by Kaarina Koski and Frog with Ulla Savolainen, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.</ref> Gomez has presented some Mayan sayings that he thinks are evidence of a paremiological tradition.<ref>Gómez, Martín Sobrino. "Estudio paremiológico de la lengua maya yucateca (siglos XVI y XVII)." ''Paremia'' 34 (2024): 165-175.</ref>  Hakamies has examined the matter of whether proverbs are found universally, a universal genre, concluding that they are not.<ref>Hakamies, Pekka. 2016. "Proverbs – A Universal Genre?", in ''Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond'', ed. by Kaarina Koski and Frog with Ulla Savolainen, pp. 299–316. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.</ref>

==Use==
===In conversation===
Proverbs are used in conversation by adults more than children, partially because adults have learned more proverbs than children.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Experts |first=Disha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BuFgDwAAQBAJ&dq=Proverbs+are+used+in+conversation+by+adults+more+than+children,+partially+because+adults+have+learned+more+proverbs+than+children&pg=PA53 |title=Olympiad Champs English Class 8 with Past Olympiad Questions 3rd Edition |publisher=Disha Publications |isbn=978-93-88026-46-8 |pages=53 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Experts |first=Disha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmVgDwAAQBAJ&dq=Proverbs+are+used+in+conversation+by+adults+more+than+children,+partially+because+adults+have+learned+more+proverbs+than+children&pg=PA105 |title=Olympiad Champs English Class 7 with Past Olympiad Questions 2nd Edition |publisher=Disha Publications |isbn=978-93-88026-45-1 |pages=105 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Brien |first=Terry O' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PEmuoQEACAAJ |title=English Proverbs |date=2011-01-07 |publisher=Rupa |isbn=978-81-291-1808-0 |language=en}}</ref> Also, using proverbs well is a skill that is developed over years.<ref name=":4" /> Additionally, children have not mastered the patterns of metaphorical expression that are invoked in proverb use. Proverbs, because they are indirect, allow a speaker to disagree or give advice in a way that may be less offensive.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ross |first1=Rosetta E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C4tCCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Proverbs,+because+they+are+indirect,+allow+a+speaker+to+disagree+or+give+advice+in+a+way+that+may+be+less+offensive%22&pg=PA24 |title=Unraveling and Reweaving Sacred Canon in Africana Womanhood |last2=Amenga-Etego |first2=Rose Mary |date=2015-12-15 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-1-4985-1822-2 |pages=24 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> Studying actual proverb use in conversation, however, is difficult since the researcher must wait for proverbs to happen.<ref>Elias Dominguez Baraja. 2010. ''The function of proverbs in discourse''. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.</ref> An Ethiopian researcher, Tadesse Jaleta Jirata, made headway in such research by attending and taking notes at events where he knew proverbs were expected to be part of the conversations.<ref name="Tadesse Jaleta Jirata 2009">Tadesse Jaleta Jirata. 2009. A contextual study of the social functions of Guji-Oromo proverbs. Saabruecken: DVM Verlag.</ref>

===In literature===
[[File:Not all who wander are lost.png|thumb|[http://www.elvenminstrel.com/tolkien/proverbs.htm Created proverb] from [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''Lord of the Rings'' on a bumper sticker.]]

Many authors have used proverbs in their writings, for a very wide variety of literary genres: epics,<ref>Hallo, William W. "Proverbs Quoted in Epic." In Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, pp. 203–217. Brill, 1990.</ref><ref>Yuldybaeva, G.V. 2013. On Research of the Style of the Bashkir Folk Epic "Ural-Batyr" pp. 121–122. ''Ethnological Studies of Shamanism and Other Indigenous Spiritual Beliefs and Practices '', Vol. 15, part 2, pp. 121, 122. Moscow.</ref><ref>Tsaaior, James Tar (2010), "Webbed words: masked meanings: proverbiality and narrative/discursive strategies in D. T. Niane's Sundiata: An Epic of Mali". ''Proverbium'' 27: 319–338.</ref><ref>Adjandeh, Evelyn Aku. 2014. ''A study of Proverbs in "Things Fall Apart" and "Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Sundiata). MPhil thesis, University of Ghana.''.</ref> novels,<ref>Obiechina, Emmanuel. "Narrative proverbs in the African novel." Research in African Literatures 24, no. 4 (1993): 123–140.</ref><ref>Emmanuel Obiechina. Culture, tradition and society in the West African novel. Vol. 14. CUP Archive, 1975.</ref> poems,<ref>Renker, Elizabeth. 2014. "Melville and the Worlds of Civil War Poetry." ''Leviathan'' 16 (2014): 135–52.</ref> short stories.<ref>2017. Peter Unseth and Georgi Kapchits. Hemingway’s Somali proverb confirmed. ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews'' 30(4):253–254.</ref>

Probably the most famous user of proverbs in novels is [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] in his ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' series.<ref name="Michael Stanton 1996">Michael Stanton. 1996. Advice is a dangerous gift. ''Proverbium'' 13: 331–345</ref><ref name="Trokhimenko, Olga 2003">Trokhimenko, Olga. 2003. "If You Sit on the Doorstep Long Enough, You Will Think of Something": The Function of Proverbs in J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit." ''[[Proverbium (journal)]]''20: 367–378.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.elvenminstrel.com/tolkien/proverbs.htm|title=Tolkien's Proverbs in The Lord of the Rings|website=www.elvenminstrel.com}}</ref><ref>Rowe, David. 2016. ''The proverbs of Middle-Earth'', 2nd edition.</ref> [[Herman Melville]] is noted for creating proverbs in ''[[Moby-Dick]]''<ref>Hayes, Kevin. ''Melville’s Folk Roots''. Kent State University Press, 1999, p. 30.</ref> and in his poetry.<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2015. The Source of Melville’s Iroquois Proverb. ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews'' 28:3–4, 182–185.</ref><ref>p. 141. Renker, Elizabeth. 2014. Mellville and the Worlds of Civil War Poetry. ''Leviathan'' 16: 135–152.</ref> Also, [[C. S. Lewis]] created a dozen proverbs in ''[[The Horse and His Boy]]'',<ref name="Unseth, Peter 2011">Unseth, Peter. 2011. A culture "full of choice apophthegms and useful maxims": invented proverbs in C.S. Lewis' ''The Horse and His Boy'' ''Proverbium'' 28: 323–338.</ref> and [[Mercedes Lackey]] created dozens for her invented [[Shin'a'in]] and Tale'edras cultures;<ref>Proverbs from Velgarth – http://www.dragonlordsnet.com/danp.htm</ref> Lackey's proverbs are notable in that they are reminiscent to those of Ancient Asia – e.g. "Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong" is like to "Before telling secrets on the road, look in the bushes." These authors are notable for not only using proverbs as integral to the development of the characters and the story line, but also for creating proverbs.<ref name="Unseth, Peter 2011"/>

Among medieval literary texts, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s [[Troilus and Criseyde]] plays a special role because Chaucer's usage seems to challenge the truth value of proverbs by exposing their epistemological unreliability.<ref>Richard Utz, "''Sic et Non'': Zu Funktion und Epistemologie des Sprichwortes bei Geoffrey Chaucer," ''Das Mittelalter: Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung'' 2.2 (1997), 31–43.</ref> [[Rabelais]] used proverbs to write an entire chapter of [[Gargantua]].<ref>p. 903. Taylor, Archer. 1950. Proverbs. ''Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend'', Maria Leach ed. 902–905. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.</ref>

The patterns of using proverbs in literature can change over time. A study of "classical Chinese novels" found proverb use as frequently as one proverb every 3,500 words in the ''[[Water Margin]]'' (''Shuihu zhuan'') and one proverb every 4,000 words in ''Wen Jou-hsiang''. But modern Chinese novels have fewer proverbs by far.<ref>Eberhard, W. 1967. Some notes on the use of proverbs in Chinese novels. ''Proverbium'' no. 9: 201–208.</ref>

[[File:Hercules & Waggoner2.jpg|left|thumb|"Hercules and the Wagoner", illustration for children's book]]
Proverbs (or portions of them) have been the inspiration for titles of books: ''The Bigger they Come'' by [[Erle Stanley Gardner]], and ''Birds of a Feather'' (several books with this title), ''Devil in the Details'' (multiple books with this title). Sometimes a title alludes to a proverb, but does not actually quote much of it, such as ''The Gift Horse's Mouth'' by Robert Campbell. Some books or stories have titles that are twisted proverbs, anti-proverbs, such as ''No use dying over spilled milk'',<ref>Myers, Tamar. 1996. ''No use dying over spelled milk''. New York: Penguin Books.</ref> ''When life gives you lululemons,''<ref>Weisburger, Lauren. 2018. ''When life gives you lululemons.'' Simon & Schuster.</ref> and two books titled ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers''.<ref>Lynch, Sarah-Kate. 2004. ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers''. Grand Central Publications and Tricia Goyr & Cara Putman. 2016. ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers.''</ref> The twisted proverb of last title was also used in the [[Monty Python]] movie [[Life of Brian]], where a person mishears one of Jesus Christ's [[beatitudes]], "I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'"

Some books and stories are built around a proverb. Some of Tolkien's books have been analyzed as having "governing proverbs" where "the action of a book turns on or fulfills a proverbial saying."<ref>p. 332. Stanton, Michael. 1996. "Advice is a dangerous gift": (Pseudo)proverbs in ''The Lord of the Rings''. ''Proverbium'' 13:331–346.</ref> Some stories have been written with a proverb overtly as an opening, such as "A stitch in time saves nine" at the beginning of "Kitty's Class Day", one of [[Louisa May Alcott]]'s ''Proverb Stories''. Other times, a proverb appears at the end of a story, summing up a moral to the story, frequently found in [[Aesop's Fables]], such as "[[God helps those who help themselves|Heaven helps those who help themselves]]" from ''Hercules and the Wagoner''.<ref>p. 19. Kent, Graeme. 1991. ''Aesop's Fables.'' Newmarket, UK: Brimax.</ref> In a novel by the Ivorian novelist [[Ahmadou Kourouma]], "proverbs are used to conclude each chapter".<ref>p. 86. Repinecz, Jonathon. 2013. ''Whose Hero? Reinventing Epic in French West African Literature''. University of California, Berkeley: PhD dissertation.</ref>

Proverbs have also been used strategically by poets.<ref>Sobieski, Janet and Wolfgang Mieder. 2005. ''"So many heads, so many wits": An anthology of English proverb poetry.'' (Supplement Series of ''Proverbium'', 18.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref> Sometimes proverbs (or portions of them or [[anti-proverb]]s) are used for titles, such as "A bird in the bush" by [[Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet|Lord Kennet]] and his stepson [[Peter Scott]] and "[[The blind leading the blind]]" by Lisa Mueller. Sometimes, multiple proverbs are important parts of poems, such as [[Paul Muldoon]]'s "Symposium", which begins "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it hold its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds. Every dog has a stitch in time..." In Finnish there are proverb poems written hundreds of years ago.<ref>Lauhakangas, Outi. "The Oldest Finnish Proverb Poems in Relation to the [[Matti Kuusi]] International Database od Proverbs." ''Acta Ethnographica Hungarica'' 45.3–4 (2000): 401–420.</ref> The Turkish poet Refiki wrote an entire poem by stringing proverbs together, which has been translated into English poetically yielding such verses as "Be watchful and be wary, / But seldom grant a boon; / The man who calls the piper / Will also call the tune."<ref>A. L. Macfie and F. A. Macfie. 2001. A Proverb Poem by Refiki. ''Asian Folklore Studies'' Vol. 60, Issue 1, pp. 5–19.</ref> [[Eliza Griswold]] also created a poem by stringing proverbs together, Libyan proverbs translated into English.<ref>Griswold, Eliza. 2012, Libyan Proverbs. ''Poetry'' 201.3:372–377.</ref>

Because proverbs are familiar and often pointed, they have been used by a number of hip-hop poets. This has been true not only in the USA, birthplace of hip-hop, but also in Nigeria. Since Nigeria is so multilingual, hip-hop poets there use proverbs from various languages, mixing them in as it fits their need, sometimes translating the original. For example,
<br />"They forget say ogbon ju agbaralo<br />They forget that wisdom is greater than power"<ref>p. 43. Akande, Akinmade Timothy and Adebayo
Mosobalaje. 2014. The use of proverbs in hip-hop music: The example of Yoruba proverbs in 9ices's music. ''Proverbium'' 31:35–58.</ref>

Some authors have bent and twisted proverbs, creating anti-proverbs, for a variety of literary effects. For example, in the [[Harry Potter]] novels, [[J. K. Rowling]] reshapes a standard English proverb into "It's no good crying over spilt potion" and [[Dumbledore]] advises Harry not to "count your owls before they are delivered".<ref>Heather A. Haas. 2011. The Wisdom of Wizards{{snd}}and Muggles and Squibs: Proverb Use in the World of Harry Potter. ''Journal of American Folklore'' 124(492): 38.</ref> In a slightly different use of reshaping proverbs, in the [[Aubrey–Maturin series]] of historical naval novels by [[Patrick O'Brian]], Capt. [[Jack Aubrey]] humorously mangles and mis-splices proverbs, such as "Never count the bear's skin before it is hatched" and "There's a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot."<ref>Jan Harold Brunvand. 2004. "The Early Bird Is Worth Two in the Bush": Captain Jack Aubrey's Fractured Proverbs. ''What Goes Around Comes Around: The Circulation of Proverbs in Contemporary Life'', [[Kimberly J. Lau]], Peter Tokofsky, Stephen D. Winick, (eds.), pp. 152–170. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. [http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=usupress_pubs&sei-redir=1#search=%22What%20Goes%20Around%20Comes%20Around%3A%20Circulation%20Proverbs%20Contemporary%20Life%2C%22 digitalcommons.usu.edu]</ref> Earlier than O'Brian's Aubrey, [[Beatrice Grimshaw]] also used repeated splicings of proverbs in the mouth of an eccentric marquis to create a memorable character in ''The Sorcerer's Stone'',<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2020. Beatrice Grimshaw’s Proverb Splicer and Her Artful Use of Proverbs. ''Proverbium'' 37:341–358.</ref> such as "The proof of the pudding sweeps clean" (p.&nbsp;109) and "A stitch in time is as good as a mile" (p.&nbsp;97).<ref>Grimshaw, Beatrice. 1914. ''The Sorcerer’s Stone.'' Philadelphia: John Winston.</ref>
[[File:DreamHaven May 30 2020 storeboards.jpg|thumb|left|Proverb from Spiderman now in public use]]

Because proverbs are so much a part of the language and culture, authors have sometimes used proverbs in historical fiction effectively, but anachronistically, before the proverb was actually known. For example, the novel ''Ramage and the Rebels'', by [[Dudley Pope]] is set in approximately 1800. Captain Ramage reminds his adversary "You are supposed to know that it is dangerous to change horses in midstream" (p.&nbsp;259), with another allusion to the same proverb three pages later. However, the proverb about changing horses in midstream is reliably dated to 1864, so the proverb could not have been known or used by a character from that period.<ref>p. 49, [[Jennifer Speake]]. 2008. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs'', 5th ed. Oxford University Press.</ref>

Some authors have used so many proverbs that there have been entire books written cataloging their proverb usage, such as [[Charles Dickens]],<ref>George Bryan and Wolfgang Mieder. 1997. ''The Proverbial Charles Dickens''. New York: Peter Lang</ref> [[Agatha Christie]],<ref>George B. Bryan. 1993. ''Black Sheep, Red Herrings, and Blue Murder: The Proverbial Agatha Christie''. Bern: Peter Lang</ref> [[George Bernard Shaw]],<ref>George B. Bryan and Wolfgang Mieder. 1994. ''The Proverbial Bernard Shaw: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of George Bernard Shaw''. Heinemann Educational Books.</ref> [[Miguel de Cervantes]],<ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2006. ''Tilting at Windmills History & Meaning of a Proverbial Allusion to Cervantes Don Quixote''. Burlington: University of Vermont. {{ISBN|978-0-9770731-3-9}}</ref><ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2017. ''"Stringing proverbs together: The proverbial language in Miguel Cervantes's "Don Quixote"''. (Supplement series to Provebium, 38.) Burlington: University of Vermont.</ref> and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].<ref>Andreas Nolte, Wolfgang Mieder. 2012. "Zu meiner Hölle will ich den Weg mit guten Sprüchen pflastern". ''Friedrich Nietzsches sprichwörtliche Sprache''. Broschu.</ref>

On the non-fiction side, proverbs have also been used by authors for articles that have no connection to the study of proverbs. Some have been used as the basis for book titles, e.g. ''I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self'' by April Lane Benson. Some proverbs been used as the basis for article titles, though often in altered form: "All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence"<ref>Connable, Ben. (2009). All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence. Military Review, March–April: 57–64.</ref> and "Should Rolling Stones Worry About Gathering Moss?",<ref>MUNISHWAR NATH GUPTA. 2017. ''Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy'' 83 No. 4: 741–743.</ref> "Between a Rock and a Soft Place",<ref>Denig, Stephen J. Between a Rock and a Soft Place. ''Christian Higher Education'' 11.1 (2012): 44–61.</ref> and the pair "Verbs of a feather flock together"<ref>Lederer, Anne, Henry Gleitman, and Lila Gleitman. "Verbs of a feather flock together: Semantic information in the structure of maternal speech." Beyond names for things: Young children’s acquisition of verbs 277–297 (1995)</ref> and "Verbs of a feather flock together II".<ref>Gleitman, Lila R. "Verbs of a feather flock together II." Amsterdam Studies in the Theorgy and History of Linguistic Science Series 4 (2002): 209–232.</ref> Proverbs have been noted as common in subtitles of articles<ref>p. 154. ''Introduction to Paremiology. A Comprehensive Guide to Proverb Studies'' edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga. Berlin: De Gruyter Open. Online: [http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/449649 Open Access version].</ref> such as "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'."<ref>Cope, Lida. 2006. "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'." ''Southern Journal of Linguistics'' 30(2):1–49.</ref> Also, the reverse is found with a proverb (complete or partial) as the title, then an explanatory subtitle, "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections".<ref>Norpoth, Helmut. 2012. "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections." ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' Volume 42, Issue 2: 324–342.</ref> Many authors have cited proverbs as epigrams at the beginning of their articles, e.g. "'If you want to dismantle a hedge, remove one thorn at a time' Somali proverb" in an article on peacemaking in Somalia.<ref>Ismail I. Ahmed and Reginald H. Green. 1999. The heritage of war and state collapse in Somalia and Somaliland. ''Third World Quarterly'' 20.1:113–127.</ref> An article about research among the [[Māori people|Māori]] used a Māori proverb as a title, then began the article with the Māori form of the proverb as an epigram "Set the overgrown bush alight and the new flax shoots will spring up", followed by three paragraphs about how the proverb served as a metaphor for the research and the present context.<ref>Pia Pohatu and Tui Aroha Warmenhoven. 2007. Set the overgrowth alight and the new shoots will spring forth: New directions in community based research. ''AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship'', Special supplement, 109–127.</ref> A British proverb has even been used as the title for a doctoral dissertation: ''Where there is muck there is brass''.<ref>Abramson, Tony. 2016. ''Where there’s muck there’s brass! Coinage in the Northumbrian landscape and economy, c.575-c.867.'' Leeds University: Doctoral dissertation.</ref> Proverbs have also been used as a framework for an article.<ref>Blitt, Robert C. "Babushka Said Two Things-It Will Either Rain or Snow; It Either Will or Will Not: An Analysis of the Provisions and Human Rights Implications of Russia's New Law on Non-Governmental Organizations as Told through Eleven Russian Proverbs." Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 40 (2008): 1–86.</ref>

===In drama and film===
[[File:Dog in manger poster.jpg|thumb|Play poster from 1899.]]
Similarly to other forms of literature, proverbs have also been used as important units of language in drama and films. This is true from the days of classical Greek works<ref>Russo, Joseph. 1983. The Poetics of the Ancient Greek Proverb. ''Journal of Folklore Research''
Vol. 20, No. 2/3, pp. 121–130</ref> to [[old French]]<ref>Wandelt, Oswin. 1887. Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des altfranzösischen Dramas (1100–1400. Dissertation at Marburg Fr. Sömmering.</ref> to Shakespeare,<ref>Wilson, F.P. 1981. The proverbial wisdom of Shakespeare. In ''The Wisdom of Many: Essays on the Proverb'', ed. by Wolfgang Mieder and Alan Dundes, pp. 174–189. New York: Garland.</ref> to 19th Century Spanish,<ref>Françoise Cazal. 2012. Los refranes en el Auto de Caín y Abel, de Jaime Ferruz: frontera entre texto dramático y enunciado proverbial. ''Paremia'' 21: 21–32.[http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/02-CAZAL.pdf Electronic form] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140502001353/http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/02-CAZAL.pdf |date=2014-05-02}}</ref> 19th century Russian,<ref>Grylack, B. R. (1975). The function of proverbs in the dramatic works of [[Alexander Ostrovsky|Aleksandr Nikolaevic Ostrovskij]]. New York University doctoral dissertation.</ref> to today. The use of proverbs in drama and film today is still found in languages around the world, with plenty of examples from Africa,<ref>Adeoti, Gbemisola. "The loudness of the “Unsaid”: Proverbs in selected African drama." ''Legon Journal of the Humanities'' 30, no. 1 (2019): 82–104.</ref> including [[Yoruba language|Yorùbá]]<ref>Akíntúndé Akínyemi. 2007. The use of Yorùbá proverbs in Alin Isola's historical drama ''Madam Tinubu: Terror in Lagos''. ''Proverbium'' 24:17–37.</ref><ref>Yusuf, Habibat Fayoke, and Tayo Lamidi. "Translation Strategies of Proverbs in Selected Yoruba Nollywood Epic Movies." ''Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies'' 28, no. 1 (2018): 155–171.</ref> and [[Igbo language|Igbo]]<ref>Ezenwamadu, Nkechi Judith. "The Use of Proverbs i [[Zulu Sofola]]'s King Emene." ''Online Journal of Arts, Management & Social Sciences'' 2, no. 1 (2017).</ref><ref>Ezenwamadu, Nkechi Judith, and Chinyere Theodora Ojiakor. "Proverbs and Postproverbial Stance in Selected Plays of Emeka Nwabueze and Zulu Sofola." ''Matatu'' 51, no. 2 (2020): 432–447.</ref> of Nigeria.

A film that makes rich use of proverbs is ''[[Forrest Gump]]'', known for both using and creating proverbs.<ref>Stephen David Winick. 1998. "The proverb process: Intertextuality and proverbial innovation in popular culture". University of Pennsylvania dissertation.</ref><ref>Stephen David Winick. 2013. Proverb is as proverb does. ''Proverbium''30:377–428.</ref> Other studies of the use of proverbs in film include work by Kevin McKenna on the Russian film ''[[Aleksandr Nevsky]]'',<ref>Kevin McKenna. 2009. "Proverbs and the Folk Tale in the Russian Cinema: The Case of Sergei Eisenstein's Film Classic Aleksandr Nevsky." ''The Proverbial «Pied Piper» A Festschrift Volume of Essays in Honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday'', ed. by Kevin McKenna, pp. 277–292. New York, Bern: Peter Lang.</ref> Haase's study of an adaptation of [[Little Red Riding Hood]],<ref>Donald Haase. 1990. Is seeing believing? Proverbs and the adaptation of a fairy tale. ''Proverbium'' 7: 89–104.</ref>  Elias Dominguez Barajas on the film ''[[Viva Zapata!]]'',<ref>Elias Dominguez Baraja. 2010. ''The function of proverbs in discourse'', p. 66, 67. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.</ref> and Aboneh Ashagrie on ''[[The Athlete (2009 film)|The Athlete]]'' (a movie in Amharic about [[Abebe Bikila]]).<ref>Aboneh Ashagrie. 2013. The Athlete: a movie about the Ethiopian barefooted Olympic champion. ''Journal of African Cultural Studies'' Vol. 25, No. 1, 119–121.</ref>

Television programs have also been named with reference to proverbs, usually shortened, such [[Birds of a Feather (TV series)|Birds of a Feather]] and [[Diff'rent Strokes]].

In the case of ''[[Forrest Gump]]'', the screenplay by [[Eric Roth]] had more proverbs than the novel by [[Winston Groom]], but for ''[[The Harder They Come]]'', the reverse is true, where the novel derived from the movie by [[Michael Thelwell]] has many more proverbs than the movie.<ref>Coteus, Stephen. 2011. "Trouble never sets like rain": Proverb (in)direction in Michael Thelwell's ''The Harder They Come''. ''Proverbium'' 28:1–30.</ref>

[[Éric Rohmer]], the French film director, directed a series of films, the "Comedies and Proverbs", where each film was based on a proverb: ''[[The Aviator's Wife]]'', ''[[Le Beau mariage|The Perfect Marriage]]'', ''[[Pauline at the Beach]]'', ''[[Full Moon in Paris]]'' (the film's proverb was invented by Rohmer himself: "The one who has two wives loses his soul, the one who has two houses loses his mind."), ''[[The Green Ray]]'', ''[[Boyfriends and Girlfriends]]''.<ref>Pym, John. 1986/1987. Silly Girls. ''Sight and Sound'' 56.1:45–48.</ref>

Movie titles based on proverbs include ''[[Murder Will Out (1939 film)]]'', ''Try, Try Again'', and ''[[The Harder They Fall (1956 film)|The Harder They Fall]]''. A twisted anti-proverb was the title for a [[Three Stooges]] film, ''[[A Bird in the Head]]''. The title of an award-winning Turkish film, [[Three Monkeys (film)|Three Monkeys]], also invokes a proverb, though the title does not fully quote it.

They have also been used as the titles of plays:<ref>Bryan, George. 2002. Proverbial titles of dramas. ''Proverbium'' 19:65–74.</ref> ''[[Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater|Baby with the Bathwater]]'' by [[Christopher Durang]], ''Dog Eat Dog'' by [[Mary Gallagher]], and ''[[The Dog in the Manger]]'' by [[Charles Hale Hoyt]]. The use of proverbs as titles for plays is not, of course, limited to English plays: ''Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée'' (A door must be open or closed) by [[Paul de Musset]]. Proverbs have also been used in musical dramas, such as ''The Full Monty'', which has been shown to use proverbs in clever ways.<ref>Konstantinova, Anna. 2012. Proverbs in an American musical: A cognitive-discursive study of "The Full Monty". ''Proverbium'' 29:67–93.</ref> In the lyrics for ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', Gaston plays with three proverbs in sequence, "All roads lead to.../The best things in life are.../All's well that ends with...me."

===In music===

Proverbs are often poetic in and of themselves, making them ideally suited for adapting into songs. Proverbs have been used in music from opera to country to hip-hop. Proverbs have also been used in music in many languages, such as the [[Akan language]]<ref>p. 95 ff. Kwesi Yankah. 1989. ''The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric.'' Bern: Peter Lang.</ref> the [[Igede language]],<ref>Ode S. Ogede. 1993. Proverb usage in the praise songs of Igede: ''Adiyah'' poet Micah Ichegbeh. ''Proverbium'' 10:237–256.</ref> Spanish,<ref>Raúl Eduardo GONZÁLEZ HERNÁNDEZ. Refranes en las canciones de [[Chava Flores]]. ''Paremia'' 20: 2011, pp. 139–148. [http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/13.GONZALEZ.pdf Electronic access] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140502033056/http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/13.GONZALEZ.pdf |date=2014-05-02}}</ref> and Igbo.<ref>{{cite book |pages=115–117 |first1=G. M. T. |last1=Emezue |first2=Nefertiti N. |last2=Emezue |contribution=An Encounter with a Proverb-Hunter and the Beingness of Igbo Proverbs |title=Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress: Inspiration from Chinua Achebe's Proverbs |date=2021 |editor1-first=Francis B. |editor1-last=Nyamnjoh |editor2-first=Patrick |editor2-last=Nwosu |editor3-first=Hassan M. |editor3-last=Yosimbom |location=Bamenda, Cameroon |publisher=Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group |isbn=9789956551477}}</ref>

[[File:Gnomovtt-The-Mighty-Diamonds.jpg|thumb|The Mighty Diamonds, singers of "Proverbs"]]
In English the proverb (or rather the beginning of the proverb), [[If the shoe fits (disambiguation)|If the shoe fits]] has been used as a title for three albums and five songs. Other English examples of using proverbs in music<ref>Bryan, Geoerge. 2001. An unfinished List of Anglo-American Proverb Songs. ''Proverbium'' 18:15–56.</ref> include [[Elvis Presley]]'s ''Easy come, easy go'', Harold Robe's ''Never swap horses when you're crossing a stream'', Arthur Gillespie's ''Absence makes the heart grow fonder'', [[Bob Dylan]]'s ''Like a rolling stone'', [[Cher]]'s ''Apples don't fall far from the tree''. [[Lynn Anderson]] made famous a song full of proverbs, ''[[Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson song)|I never promised you a rose garden]]'' (written by [[Joe South]]). In choral music, we find [[Michael Torke]]'s ''Proverbs'' for female voice and ensemble. A number of [[Blues]] musicians have also used proverbs extensively.<ref>Taft, Michael. 1994. Proverbs in the Blues. ''Proverbium'' 12: 227–258.</ref><ref>Prahlad, Sw. Anand. 1996. ''African-American Proverbs in Context''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. See pp. 77ff.</ref> The frequent use of proverbs in Country music has led to published studies of proverbs in this genre.<ref>Steven Folsom. 1993. ''A discography of American Country music hits employing proverb: Covering the years 1986–1992. Proceedings for the 1993.'' Conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association, ed. by Sue Poor, pp. 31–42. Stillwater, Oklahoma: The Association.</ref><ref>Florian Gutman. 2007. "Because you're mine, I walk the line" Sprichwörliches in auswegewählten Liedern von Johnny Cash." ''Sprichwörter sind Goldes Wert'', ed. by Wolfgang Mieder, pp. 177–194. (Supplement series of ''Proverbium'' 25). Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref> The [[Reggae]] artist Jahdan Blakkamoore has recorded a piece titled ''Proverbs Remix''. The opera ''Maldobrìe'' contains careful use of proverbs.<ref>V. Dezeljin. 1997. Funzioni testuali dei proverbi nel testo di ''Maldobrìe''. Linguistica (Ljubljana) 37: 89–97.</ref> An extreme example of many proverbs used in composing songs is a song consisting almost entirely of proverbs performed by [[Bruce Springsteen]], "My best was never good enough".<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqJeHXifgLk |archive-url= https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211111/TqJeHXifgLk |archive-date=2021-11-11 |url-status=live|title=Bruce Springsteen – My Best Was Never Good Enough – Live 2005 (opening night) video |date= 20 January 2010 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=2012-09-20}}{{cbignore}}</ref> [[The Mighty Diamonds]] recorded a song called simply "Proverbs".<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyO2Chjy4LM |title=Mighty Diamonds doing "Proverbs" |website=[[YouTube]]|date=20 March 2017 }}</ref>

The band [[Fleet Foxes]] used the proverb painting [[Netherlandish Proverbs]] for the cover of their album [[Fleet Foxes (album)|Fleet Foxes.]]<ref>Jones, Jonathan. "Why I judge albums by their covers." Wednesday 25 February 2009. ''The Guardian''.</ref>

In addition to proverbs being used in songs themselves, some rock bands have used parts of proverbs as their names, such as the [[Rolling Stones]], [[Bad Company]], [[The Mothers of Invention]], Feast or Famine, and [[Of Mice and Men (band)|Of Mice and Men]]. There have been at least two groups that called themselves "The Proverbs", and there is a hip-hop performer in South Africa known as "Proverb". In addition, many albums have been named with allusions to proverbs, such as ''Spilt milk'' (a title used by [[Jellyfish (band)|Jellyfish]] and also [[Kristina Train]]), ''The more things change'' by [[Machine Head (band)|Machine Head]], ''Silk purse'' by [[Linda Ronstadt]], ''Another day, another dollar'' by DJ Scream Roccett, ''[[The blind leading the naked]]'' by [[Violent Femmes]], ''What's good for the goose is good for the gander'' by [[Bobby Rush (musician)|Bobby Rush]], ''Resistance is Futile'' by [[Steve Coleman]], ''Murder will out'' by [[Fan the Fury]]. The proverb ''Feast or famine'' has been used as an album title by [[Feast or Famine (Chuck Ragan album)|Chuck Ragan]], [[Feast or Famine (Reef the Lost Cauze album)|Reef the Lost Cauze]], Indiginus, and DaVinci. [[Whitehorse (band)|Whitehorse]] mixed two proverbs for the name of their album ''Leave no bridge unburned''. The band Splinter Group released an album titled ''When in Rome, Eat Lions,'' referring to the proverb "[[When in Rome, do as the Romans do]]". The band Downcount used a proverb for the name of their tour, ''[[Come and take it]]''.<ref>p. 10. Singh, Anup K. 2017. ''Dictionary of Proverbs''. Neelkanth Prakashan Publishers.</ref>

===In visual form===
[[File:Fonte com texto (Trancoso).jpg|thumb|left|Proverb on [[azulejo]] tiles in [[Trancoso, Portugal]]]]
[[File:Jacob Jordaens - The Feast of the Bean King - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''The King drinks'' by [[Jacob Jordaens]]]]
[[File:Hornets.nest.JPG|left|thumb|Thai ceramic, illustrating "Don't torch a stump with a hornet nest."]]
[[File:Pieter Brueghel the Elder - The Dutch Proverbs - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Netherlandish Proverbs]]'', 1559, with peasant scenes illustrating over 100 proverbs]]
[[File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder- Big Fish Eat Little Fish.JPG|thumb|''[[Big Fish Eat Little Fish]]'', 1556]]
From ancient times, people around the world have recorded proverbs in visual form. This has been done in two ways. First, proverbs have been ''written'' to be displayed, often in a decorative manner, such as on pottery, cross-stitch, murals,<ref>Victor Khachan. 2012. Courtroom proverbial murals in Lebanon: a semiotic reconstruction of justice. ''Social Semiotics'' {{doi|10.1080/10350330.2012.665262}}</ref><ref>Martin Charlot. 2007. ''Local Traffic Only: Proverbs Hawaiian Style.'' Watermark Publishing.</ref> [[Kanga (African garment)|kangas]] (East African women's wraps),<ref>Rose Marie Beck. 2000. Aesthetics of Communication: Texts on Textiles (Leso) from the East African Coast (Swahili). ''Research in African Literatures'' 31.4: 104–124)</ref> [[quilt]]s,<ref>MacDowell, Marsha and Wolfgang Mieder. "'When Life Hands You Scraps, Make a Quilt': Quiltmakers and the Tradition of Proverbial Inscriptions." ''Proverbium'' 27 (2010), 113–172.</ref> a stained glass window,<ref name="Lisa Reilly 2016"/> and graffiti.<ref>Szpila, G. (2012). Regulating the reality? Proverbs in Polish graffiti, Estonia and Poland. ''Creativity and Tradition in Cultural Communication'' 1, 269–284.</ref>

Secondly, proverbs have often been visually depicted in a variety of media, including paintings, etchings, and sculpture. [[Jakob Jordaens]] painted a plaque with a proverb about drunkenness above a drunk man wearing a crown, titled ''The King Drinks''. Probably the most famous examples of depicting proverbs are the different versions of the paintings ''[[Netherlandish Proverbs]]'' by the father and son [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder]] and [[Pieter Brueghel the Younger]], the proverbial meanings of these paintings being the subject of a 2004 conference, which led to a published volume of studies (Mieder 2004a). The same father and son also painted versions of [[The Blind Leading the Blind]], a Biblical proverb. These and similar paintings inspired another famous painting depicting some proverbs and also idioms (leading to a series of additional paintings), such as ''[[Proverbidioms]]'' by [[T. E. Breitenbach]]. Another painting inspired by Bruegel's work is by the Chinese artist, Ah To, who created a painting illustrating 81 Cantonese sayings.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/ |title=Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture |date=25 February 2014}}</ref>  Corey Barksdale has produced a book of paintings with specific proverbs and pithy quotations.<ref>Corey Barksdale. 2011. ''Art & Inspirational Proverbs''. Lulu.com.{{self-published source|date=February 2020}}</ref>{{self-published inline|date=February 2020}} The British artist [[Chris Gollon]] has painted a work entitled ''[[Big Fish Eat Little Fish#2001 painting|Big Fish Eat Little Fish]]'', a title echoing Bruegel's painting of the same name.<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://www.chrisgollon.com/collections/big-fish-eat-little-fish/ |title=Gollon's painting |access-date=2018-12-02 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171220155210/http://www.chrisgollon.com/collections/big-fish-eat-little-fish/ |archive-date=2017-12-20 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Oliver Pelton - Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richard's Almanac Illustrated.jpg|thumb|Illustrations showing proverbs from Ben Franklin]]
[[File:Three wise monkeys figure.JPG|thumb|[[Three wise monkeys]], invoking a proverb, with no text.]]
Sometimes well-known proverbs are pictured on objects, without a text actually quoting the proverb, such as the [[three wise monkeys]] who remind us "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". When the proverb is well known, viewers are able to recognize the proverb and understand the image appropriately, but if viewers do not recognize the proverb, much of the effect of the image is lost. For example, there is a Japanese painting in the [[Ōmiya Bonsai Village|Bonsai museum]] in [[Saitama, Saitama|Saitama city]] that depicted flowers on a dead tree, but only when the curator learned the ancient (and no longer current) proverb "Flowers on a dead tree" did the curator understand the deeper meaning of the painting.<ref>p. 426. Yoko Mori. 2012. Review of  ''Dictionary of Japanese Illustrated Proverbs''. ''Proverbium'' 29:435–456.</ref> Also in Japan, an image of [[Mount Fuji]], a hawk/falcon, and three egg plants, leads viewers to remember the proverb, "One Mt. Fuji, two falcons, three egg plants", a [[Hatsuyume]] dream predicting a long life.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://jpninfo.com/38217 |title=GaijinPot}}</ref>

A bibliography on proverbs in visual form has been prepared by Mieder and Sobieski (1999). Interpreting visual images of proverbs is subjective, but familiarity with the depicted proverb helps.<ref>pp. 203–213. Richard Honeck. 1997. ''A Proverb in Mind''. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.</ref>

Some artists have used proverbs and anti-proverbs for titles of their paintings, alluding to a proverb rather than picturing it. For example, [[Vivienne LeWitt]] painted a piece titled  "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?", which shows neither foot nor shoe, but a woman counting her money as she contemplates different options when buying vegetables.<ref>{{cite web|author=database and e-research tool for art and design researchers |url= http://www.daao.org.au/bio/work/if-the-shoe-doesnt-fit-must-we-change-the-foot/ |title=If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot? |work=Design and Art Australia Online |publisher=Daao.org.au |date=2012-10-20 |access-date=2013-08-30}}</ref>

In 2018, 13 sculptures depicting Maltese proverbs were installed in open spaces of downtown [[Valletta]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180203/community/valletta-statue-depicting-proverb-gets-tongues-wagging-online.669628 |title=Article on Maltese proverb sculptures|date=3 February 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-02-02/local-news/A-bum-a-bird-and-a-pig-Valletta-2018-unveils-Kif-Jghid-Il-Malti-public-art-installations-6736184371|title=A bum, a bird and a pig: Valletta 2018 unveils 'Kif Jgħid Il-Malti' public art installations – The Malta Independent|website=Independent.com.mt|access-date=3 June 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/articles/view/20180202/arts-entertainment/valletta-2018-unveils-public-art-installations.669557 |title=Arts & Entertainment |work=Times of Malta |access-date=3 June 2018}}</ref>

===In cartoons===
Cartoonists, both editorial and pure humorists, have often used proverbs, sometimes primarily building on the text, sometimes primarily on the situation visually, the best cartoons combining both. Not surprisingly, cartoonists often twist proverbs, such as visually depicting a proverb literally or twisting the text as an anti-proverb.<ref>Trokhimenko, Olga V. 1999."Wie ein Elefant im Porzellanlanden": Ursprung, Überlieferung und Gebrauch der Redensart in Deutschen und im Englischen. ''Proverbium'' 16: 351–380</ref> An example with all of these traits is a cartoon showing a waitress delivering two plates with worms on them, telling the customers, "Two early bird specials... here ya go."<ref>The Argyle Sweater, May 1, 2011.</ref>

The traditional [[Three wise monkeys]] were depicted in [[Bizarro]] with different labels. Instead of the negative imperatives, the one with ears covered bore the sign "See and speak evil", the one with eyes covered bore the sign "See and hear evil", etc. The caption at the bottom read "The power of positive thinking."<ref>June 26, 2011.</ref>  Another cartoon showed a customer in a pharmacy telling a pharmacist, "I'll have an ounce of prevention."<ref>p. 126. Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. ''Proverbs are never out of season.'' New York: Oxford University Press.</ref> The comic strip [[The Argyle Sweater]] showed an Egyptian archeologist loading a mummy on the roof of a vehicle, refusing the offer of a rope to tie it on, with the caption "A fool and his mummy are soon parted."<ref>Aug 26, 2012.</ref> The comic [[One Big Happy (comic strip)|One Big Happy]] showed a conversation where one person repeatedly posed a part of various proverb and the other tried to complete each one, resulting in such humorous results as "Don't change horses... unless you can lift those heavy diapers."<ref>July 8, 2012</ref>

[[Editorial cartoon]]s can use proverbs to make their points with extra force as they can invoke the wisdom of society, not just the opinion of the editors.<ref>Weintraut, Edward James. 1999. "Michel und Mauer": Post-Unification Germany as seen through Editorial Cartoons. Die Unterrichtspraxis 32.2: 143–150.</ref> In an example that invoked a proverb only visually, when a US government agency ([[General Services Administration|GSA]]) was caught spending money extravagantly, a cartoon showed a [[The pot calling the kettle black|black pot]] labeled "Congress" telling a black kettle labeled "[[General Services Administration|GSA]]", "Stop wasting the taxpayers' money!"<ref>Dana Summers, Orlando Sentinel, Aug 20, 2012.</ref> It may have taken some readers a moment of pondering to understand it, but the impact of the message was the stronger for it.

Cartoons with proverbs are so common that Wolfgang Mieder has published a collected volume of them, many of them [[editorial cartoons]]. For example, a German editorial cartoon linked a current politician to the Nazis, showing him with a bottle of swastika-labeled wine and the caption "[[In vino veritas]]".<ref>p. 389. Wolfgang Mieder. 2013. ''Neues von Sisyphus: Sprichwörtliche Mythen der Anike in moderner Literatur, Medien und Karikaturen.'' Bonn: Praesens.</ref>

One cartoonist very self-consciously drew and wrote cartoons based on proverbs for the University of Vermont student newspaper ''The Water Tower'', under the title "Proverb place".<ref>Brienne Toomey. 2013. Old wisdom reimagined: Proverbial cartoons for university students. ''Proverbium'' 30: 333–346.</ref>
[[File:Good things come to those who dont wait.JPG|thumb|''[[Anti-proverb]]'' used in advertising [[Chick-Fil-A]]]]

===In advertising===
[[File:Glass half full kind of day.JPG|left|thumb|''Anti-proverb'' used in [[advertising]]]]
Proverbs are frequently used in advertising, often in slightly modified form.<ref>Wolfgang Mieder and Barbara Mieder. 1977. Tradition and innovation: Proverbs in advertising. ''Journal of Popular Culture'' 11: 308–319.</ref><ref>Stephen Winick. 2011. Fall into the (intertextual) gap: Proverbs, advertisements, and intertextual strategies. ''Proverbium'' 28:339–380.</ref><ref>Patricia Anne Audber de Baubeta. 2000. Bread, the staff of advertising. ''Paremia'' 9: 103–110. [http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/P9-12.pdf Online] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150904011854/http://www.paremia.org/wp-content/uploads/P9-12.pdf |date=2015-09-04}}</ref>
Ford once advertised its Thunderbird with, "One drive is worth a thousand words" (Mieder 2004b: 84). This is doubly interesting since the underlying proverb behind this, "One picture is worth a thousand words," was originally introduced into the English proverb repertoire in an ad for televisions (Mieder 2004b: 83).

A few of the many proverbs adapted and used in advertising include:
* "Live by the sauce, dine by the sauce" ([[Buffalo Wild Wings]])
* "At D & D Dogs, you can teach an old dog new tricks" (D & D Dogs)
* "If at first you don't succeed, you're using the wrong equipment" ([[John Deere]])
* "A [[pfennig]] saved is a pfennig earned." ([[Volkswagen]])
* "Not only absence makes the heart grow fonder." ([[Godiva Chocolatier]])
* "Where Hogs fly" ([[Grand Prairie AirHogs]]) baseball team
* "Waste not. Read a lot." ([[Half Price Books]])

The [[GEICO]] company has created a series of television ads that are built around proverbs, such as "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush",<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScDoJ2wnug |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130727010215/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScDoJ2wnug |archive-date=2013-07-27 |url-status=dead |title=GEICO Commercial – Bird in Hand |publisher=YouTube |date=2010-08-13 |access-date=2011-11-09}}</ref> and "The pen is mightier than the sword",<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcZd-ql7t1I |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110407012901/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcZd-ql7t1I |archive-date=2011-04-07 |url-status=dead|title=Is the Pen Mightier? – GEICO Commercial |publisher=YouTube |access-date=2011-11-09}}</ref> "Pigs may fly/[[Flying pig|When pigs fly]]",<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-r4Z1K_LDc |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121219230903/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-r4Z1K_LDc&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2012-12-19 |url-status=dead|title=When pigs fly |publisher=Youtube.com |date=2012-12-18 |access-date=2013-08-30}}</ref> "If a tree falls in the forest...",<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pW2bE61Z9U |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130923224000/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pW2bE61Z9U&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2013-09-23 |url-status=dead|title=YouTube|website=www.youtube.com}}</ref> and "Words can never hurt you".<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCysb4_-4jU |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140705130451/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCysb4_-4jU |archive-date=2014-07-05 |url-status=dead|title=YouTube|website=www.youtube.com}}</ref>  Doritos made a commercial based on the proverb, "When pigs fly."<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQo0TfuueaY |archive-url= https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211111/YQo0TfuueaY |archive-date=2021-11-11 |url-status=live |title=When Pigs Fly – Doritos Crash the Super Bowl 2015 Winter Official [sic] |last=Nelson Talbot |date=9 November 2014 |via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Many advertisements that use proverbs shorten or amend them, such as, "Think outside the shoebox."
Use of proverbs in advertising is not limited to the English language. Seda Başer Çoban has studied the use of proverbs in Turkish advertising.<ref>Seda Başer Çoban. 2010. Sözlü Gelenekten Sözün. Geleneksizliğine: Atasözü Ve Reklam [From Oral Tradition to the Traditionless of Speech: Proverb and Advertisement]. ''Millî Folklor''. pp. 22–27.</ref> Tatira has given a number of examples of proverbs used in advertising in Zimbabwe.<ref>Liveson Tatira. 2001. Proverbs in Zimbabwean advertisements. ''Journal of Folklore Research'' 38.3: 229–241.</ref> However, unlike the examples given above in English, all of which are anti-proverbs, Tatira's examples are standard proverbs. Where the English proverbs above are meant to make a potential customer smile, in one of the Zimbabwean examples "both the content of the proverb and the fact that it is phrased as a proverb secure the idea of a secure time-honored relationship between the company and the individuals". When newer buses were imported, owners of older buses compensated by painting a traditional proverb on the sides of their buses, "Going fast does not assure safe arrival".<ref>p. 233. Liveson Tatira. 2001. Proverbs in Zimbabwean advertisements. ''Journal of Folklore Research'' 38.3: 229–241.</ref>

==Variations==
===Counter proverbs===
There are often proverbs that contradict each other, such as "Look before you leap" and "He who hesitates is lost", or "Many hands make light work" and "Too many cooks spoil the broth". These have been labeled "counter proverbs"<ref name="Charles Clay Doyle 2012">Charles Clay Doyle. 2012. Counter proverbs. In ''Doing proverbs and other kinds of folklore'', by Charles Clay Doyle, 32–40. (Supplement series of ''Proverbium'' 33.) Burlington: University of Vermont.</ref> or "antonymous proverbs".<ref>Adrian Furnham. 1987. The Proverbial Truth: Contextually Reconciling and the Truthfulness of Antonymous Proverbs. ''Journal of Language and Social Psychology'' 6. 1:49–55.</ref> [[Stanisław Lec]] observed, "Proverbs contradict each other. And that, to be sure, is folk wisdom."<ref>p. 16. Hose, Susanne and Wolfgang Mieder, eds. ''Sorbian proverbs''. Supplement series of ''Proverbium'', 14. University of Vermont. 2004.</ref>
When there are such counter proverbs, each can be used in its own appropriate situation, and neither is intended to be a universal truth.<ref name="Singh, Anup K 2017">p. 8. Singh, Anup K. 2017. ''Dictionary of Proverbs''. Neelkanth Prakashan Publishers.</ref><ref>Oldberg, Ragnar. 1965. Ordsprak som poesi. ''Ord och Bild'' 74:564–568.</ref> 

The concept of "counter proverb" is more about pairs of contradictory proverbs than about the use of proverbs to counter each other in an argument. For example, from the [[Tafi language]] of Ghana, the following pair of proverbs are counter to each other but are each used in appropriate contexts, "A co-wife who is too powerful for you, you address her as your mother" and "Do not call your mother's co-wife your mother..."<ref>p. 425, 421. Mercy Bobuafor. 2013. ''The Grammar of Tafi.'' University of Leiden doctoral dissertation. [https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/20916/bookpart.pdf?sequence=23 link to dissertation]</ref> In Nepali, there is a set of totally contradictory proverbs: "Religion is victorious and sin erodes" and "Religion erodes and sin is victorious".<ref>p. 378. Valerie Inchley. 2010. ''Sitting in my house dreaming of Nepal.'' Kathmandu: EKTA.</ref>
Also, the following pair are counter proverbs from the Kasena of Ghana: "It is the patient person who will milk a barren cow" and "The person who would milk a barren cow must prepare for a kick on the forehead".<ref>p. 52, Helen Atawube Yitah. 2006. ''Saying Their Own 'truth': Kasena Women's (de)construction of Gender Through Proverbial Jesting.'' Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.</ref> From [[Lugbara language]] (of Uganda and Congo), there are a pair of counter proverbs: "The elephant's tusk does not ovewhelm the elephant" and "The elephant's tusks weigh the elephant down".<ref>p. 83, 84, Dalfovo, A. T. 1987. ''Lugbara Wisdom''. Unisa Press.</ref> The two contradict each other, whether they are used in an argument or not (though indeed they were used in an argument). But the same work contains an appendix with many examples of proverbs used in arguing for contrary positions, but proverbs that are not inherently contradictory,<ref>p. 157–171, Helen Atawube Yitah. 2006. ''Saying Their Own 'truth': Kasena Women's (de)construction of Gender Through Proverbial Jesting.'' Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.</ref> such as "One is better off with hope of a cow's return than news of its death" countered by "If you don't know a goat [before its death] you mock at its skin". Though this pair was used in a contradictory way in a conversation, they are not a set of "counter proverbs".<ref name="Singh, Anup K 2017"/>

Discussing counter proverbs in the [[Badaga language]], Hockings explained that in his large collection "a few proverbs are mutually contradictory... we can be sure that the Badagas do not see the matter that way, and would explain such apparent contradictions by reasoning that proverb ''x'' is used in one context, while ''y'' is used in quite another."<ref>Paul Hockings. 1988. ''Counsel from the ancients: A study of Badaga proverbs, prayers, omens, and curses.'' Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</ref> Comparing Korean proverbs, "when you compare two proverbs, often they will be contradictory." They are used for "a particular situation".<ref>p. 76. Jeyseon Lee. 2006. "Korean proverbs." In ''Korean language in culture and society,'' ed. by Ho-min Sohn, 74–85. University of Hawai'i Press.</ref>

"Counter proverbs" are not the same as a "paradoxical proverb", a proverb that contains a seeming paradox.<ref>Bendt Alster. 1975. Paradoxical Proverbs and Satire in Sumerian Literature. ''Journal of Cuneiform Studies'' 27.4: 201–230.</ref>

===Metaproverbs===
In many cultures, proverbs are so important and so prominent that there are proverbs about proverbs, that is, "metaproverbs". The most famous one is from [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]] of Nigeria, "Proverbs are the horses of speech, if communication is lost we use proverbs to find it", used by [[Wole Soyinka]] in ''Death and the King's Horsemen''. In Mieder's bibliography of proverb studies, there are twelve publications listed as describing metaproverbs.<ref>p. 1050. Wolfgang Mieder. 2009. ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</ref> Other metaproverbs include:
* "As a boy should resemble his father, so should the proverb fit the conversation." ([[Afar people|Afar]], Ethiopia)<ref>p. 276. Parker, Enid. 1971. Afar stories, riddles, and proverbs. ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 9:219–287.</ref>
* "Proverbs are the cream of language" (Afar, Ethiopia)<ref>p. 283. Parker, Enid. 1971. Afar stories, riddles, and proverbs. ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 9:219–287.</ref>
* "One proverb gives rise to a point of discussion and another ends it." (Guji Oromo & Arsi Oromo, Ethiopia)<ref>p. 36. Tadesse Jaleta Jirata. 2009. ''A contextual study of the social functions of Guji-Oromo proverbs''. Saabruecken: DVM Verlag.</ref><ref>p. 43. Tullu, Sena Gonfa. 2008. ''The images of women in the proverbs and sayings of the Oromo: The case of West Arsi zone.''</ref>
* "Is proverb a child of chieftancy?"  (Igala, Nigeria)<ref>p. 301. Pachocinski, Ryszard. 2000. ''Proverbs of Africa: Human Nature in the Nigerian Oral Tradition.'' Professors World Peace Academy.</ref>
* "Whoever has seen enough of life will be able to tell a lot of proverbs." (Igala, Nigeria)<ref>p. 260. Pachocinski, Ryszard. 2000. ''Proverbs of Africa: Human Nature in the Nigerian Oral Tradition.'' Professors World Peace Academy.</ref>
* "Bereft of proverbs, speech flounders and falls short of its mark, whereas aided by them, communication is fleet and unerring" (Yoruba, Nigeria)<ref>p. 12. Owomoyela, Oyekan. 2005. ''Yoruba Proverbs.'' Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.</ref>
* "A conversation without proverbs is like stew without salt." (Oromo, Ethiopia)<ref>Cotter, George. 1990. ''Salt for stew: proverbs and sayings of the Oromo People with English translations.'' Debre Zeit, Ethiopia : Maryknoll Fathers.</ref>
* "If you never offer your uncle palmwine, you'll not learn many proverbs." (Yoruba, Nigeria)<ref>p. 141. Eduardo da Silva. 1973. ''Prince of the People: The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free Man of Colour.'' Verso.</ref>
* "If a proverb has no bearing on a proverb, one does not use it."<ref>p. 178. Owomoyela, Oyekan. 1988. ''A kì í: Yorùbá proscriptive and prescriptive proverbs.'' Lanham, MD: University Press of America.</ref> (Yoruba, Nigeria)
* "Proverbs finish the problem."<ref>Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2009. ''Máakuti t'awá shuultáa: Proverbs finish the problems: Sayings of the Alaaba (Ethiopia)''. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.</ref> (Alaaba, Ethiopia)
* "When a proverb about a ragged basket is mentioned, the person who is skinny knows that he/she is the person alluded to." (Igbo, Nigeria)<ref>p. 391. Pachocinski, Ryszard. 2000. ''Proverbs of Africa: Human Nature in the Nigerian Oral Tradition.'' Professors World Peace Academy.</ref>
* "A proverb is the quintessentially active bit of language." (Turkish)<ref>p. 67, Dor, Rémy. 1982. 'Metel' ou l'appretissage du comportement. Le Proverbe chez les Kirghiz du Pamir afghan. ''Journal asiatique''  270:67–146.</ref>
* "The purest water is spring water, the most concise speech is proverb." (Zhuang, China)<ref>p. xxiv. Yangxian, Zhou. 2017. ''Two Thousand Proverbs from China with Annotations and Chinese and English Translation.'' New York: Peter Lang.</ref>
* "A proverb does not lie." (Arabic of Cairo)<ref>p. 76. Mahgoub, Fatma M. 1968. ''A linguistic study of Cairene proverbs''. Indiana University.</ref>
* "A saying is a flower, a proverb is a berry." (Russian)<ref>p. v. Martgavo, Peter. 1995. ''Russian proverbs and sayings.'' New York: Hippocrene Books.</ref>
* "Honey is sweet to the mouth; proverb is music to the ear." (Tibetan)<ref>Pema Tsewang, Shastri. 2012. ''Like a yeti catching marmots.'' Boston: Wisdom Publications.</ref>
* "Old proverb are little Gospels" (Galician)<ref>''{{cite web |url= https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/Ficha.aspx?Par=59494&Lng=2 |title=Os refráns vellos son evanxeos pequenos}}''</ref>
* "Proverb[-using] man, queer and vulgar/bothering man" (Spanish)<ref>''[[:es:w:hombre refranero, maricón y pilonero]]'', also ''hombre refranero, hombre puñetero''</ref>
* "A hasty man talks without using a proverb." ([[Kambaata language|Kambaata]], Ethiopia)<ref>p. 104. Desalegn Haile Arficho. ''Ideophones in Kambaata''. Addis Ababa University: PhD dissertation.</ref>
* "He who has a father knows the proverb of grandfather." ([[Kirundi]], Burundi)<ref>p. 59. Nibafasha, Spes. "Societal construction of masculinity and femininity as portrayed in Kirundi proverbs." PhD diss., Makerere University, 2013.</ref>
* "The wisdom of the proverb cannot be surpassed."  ([[Turkish language|Turkish]], Turkey)<ref>Gözpınar, Halis. "Turkish-Georgian Equivalent Proverbs and Turkish Loan-Words in Georgian Language." Karadeniz Uluslararası Bilimsel Dergi 21 (2014).</ref>
* “Where there is rhythm and alliteration, there lies a proverb.” ([[Gujarati language|Gujerati]], India)<ref>p. 52. Raymond Doctor. “Predictive Sayings in Gujerati”. ''Folklore'' Vol. 97, No. 1 (1986), pp. 41-55.</ref>
* "Proverbs are in the heart, light rain is in the clouds." ([[Mongolian language|Mongolian]])<ref>P. 168. Халзхуугийн Наранчимзг and Баизарын Чимзгсайхан. 2021. ''Dictionary of Mongolian-German-English-French-Russian Proverbs''.</ref>
* "For a person who knows crying, don't tell him proverbs."<ref>Simmons, Donald C., and Lydia F. Akesson. "Fifteen Nzima Proverbs." ''Folklore'' 76, no. 4 (1965): 262-265.</ref>([[Nzima language]], Ghana)
* "When my proverbs finish, that is when my talking will finish." (Igbo, Nigeria)<ref>{{cite book |page=93 |first1=G. M. T. |last1=Emezue |first2=Nefertiti N. |last2=Emezue |contribution=An Encounter with a Proverb-Hunter and the Beingness of Igbo Proverbs |title=Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress: Inspiration from Chinua Achebe's Proverbs |date=2021 |editor1-first=Francis B. |editor1-last=Nyamnjoh |editor2-first=Patrick |editor2-last=Nwosu |editor3-first=Hassan M. |editor3-last=Yosimbom |location=Bamenda, Cameroon |publisher=Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group |isbn=9789956551477}}</ref>
* "To the idiot we say things clearly, To the wise we speak in proverbs."(Yombe, Gabon)<ref>Visce, Philémon Kongo Muanda. ''Corpus parémique yombe: une classification logique''. 2016. Fiesole, Italy: Torrossa.</ref>

==Applications==
[[File:Blood chit3.jpg|thumb|left|[[Blood chit]] used by WWII US pilots fighting in China, in case they were shot down by the Japanese. This leaflet to the Chinese depicts an American aviator being carried by two Chinese civilians. Text is "Plant melons and harvest melons, plant peas and harvest peas," a Chinese proverb equivalent to "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reap_what_one_sows|As You Sow, So Shall You Reap]".]]
[[File:Oak Ridge Wise Monkeys.jpg|thumb|right|Billboard outside defense plant during WWII, invoking the proverb of the [[three wise monkeys]] to urge security.]]
[[File:Buenos Aires Graffiti.jpg|thumb|Wordless depiction of "Big fish eat little fish", Buenos Aires, urging, "Don't panic, organize."]]
There is a growing interest in deliberately using proverbs to achieve goals, usually to support and promote changes in society. Proverbs have also been used for public health promotion, such as promoting breast feeding with a shawl bearing a Swahili proverb "Mother's milk is sweet".<ref>{{cite web |url= http://massbreastfeeding.org/aboutKanga.html |title= About the "Mothers Milk is Sweet" poster|website=massbreastfeeding.org |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130724213805/http://massbreastfeeding.org/aboutKanga.html |archive-date=July 24, 2013}}</ref> Proverbs have also been applied for helping people manage diabetes,<ref>Hendricks, Leo and Rosetta Hendricks. 1994. Efficacy of a day treatment program in management of diabetes for aging African Americans. In Vera Jackson, ed., ''Aging Families and the Use of Proverbs'', 41–52. New York: The Haworth Press.</ref> to combat prostitution,<ref>Grady, Sandra. 2006. Hidden in decorative sight: Textile lore as proverbial communication among East African women. ''Proverbium'' 23: 169–190.</ref> and for community development,<ref>Chindogo, M. 1997. Grassroot development facilitators and traditional local wisdom: the case of Malawi. ''Embracing the Baobab Tree: The African proverb in the 21st century'', ed. by Willem Saayman, 125–135. (African Proverbs Series.) Pretoria: Unisa Press.</ref>  to resolve conflicts,<ref>Aden Muktar Barre. 2010. ''Proverbs as artistic discourse strategy in conflict resolution among Kenya Somali''. Doctoral thesis, Kenyatta University.</ref><ref>Mele, Mohammed Laminu. 2007. Nigerian languages and conflict resolution: The case for proverbs and figurative expressions. ''Nigerian Languages, Literatures, Cultures & Policy Reforms. Festschrift for Ayo Bamgbose'', ed. Ozomekuri Ndimele, p. 245–256. Port Harcourt, Nigeria: M &J Grand Orbit Communications.</ref>  and to slow the transmission of HIV.<ref>Malinga-Musamba, Tumani and Poloko N. Ntshwarang. 2014. The Role of Cultural Proverbs and Myths in Shaping Sexual Worldviews of Adolescents in Botswana. ''Social Work in Public Health'' 29: 232–239.</ref>

The most active field deliberately using proverbs is Christian ministry, where [[Joseph G. Healey]] and others have deliberately worked to catalyze the [[Paremiography|collection of proverbs]] from smaller languages and the application of them in a wide variety of church-related ministries, resulting in publications of collections<ref>Atido, George Pirwoth. 2011. Insights from Proverbs of the Alur in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Collaboration with African Proverb Saying and Stories, www.afriprov.org. Nairobi, Kenya.</ref> and applications.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.afriprov.org/ |title=African Proverbs, Sayings and Stories |publisher=Afriprov.org |access-date=2012-09-20}}</ref><ref>Moon, Jay. 2009. ''African Proverbs Reveal Christianity in Culture'' (American Society of Missiology Monograph, 5). Pickwick Publications.</ref> This attention to proverbs by those in Christian ministries is not new, many pioneering proverb collections having been collected and published by Christian workers.<ref>Christaller, Johann. 1879. ''Twi mmebuse̲m, mpensã-ahansĩa mmoaano: A collection of three thousand and six hundred Tshi proverbs, in use among the Negroes of the Gold coast speaking the Asante and Fante language, collected, together with their variations, and alphabetically arranged''. Basel: The Basel German Evangelical Missionary Society.</ref><ref>Bailleul, Charles. 2005. ''Sagesse Bambara – Proverbes et sentences''. Bamako, Mali: Editions Donniya.</ref><ref>Johnson, William F. 1892. ''Hindi Arrows for the Preacher's Bow''. (Dharma Dowali) Allahabad, India: Christian Literature Society.</ref><ref>Houlder, J[ohn]. A[lden] (1885–1960). 1960. ''Ohabolana ou proverbes malgaches''. Antananarivo: Imprimerie Luthérienne.</ref>

U.S. Navy Captain [[Edward Zellem]] pioneered the use of [[Afghan proverbs]] as a positive relationship-building tool during the [[War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|war in Afghanistan]], and in 2012 he published two bilingual collections<ref>Zellem, Edward. 2012. {{cite web|url= http://www.afghanproverbs.com|title=''Zarbul Masalha: 151 Afghan Dari Proverbs''|publisher=Charleston: CreateSpace}}</ref><ref>Zellem, Edward. 2012. {{cite web|url= http://www.afghanproverbs.com|title=''Afghan Proverbs Illustrated''|publisher=Charleston: CreateSpace}}, now also available with translations into German, French, and Russian.</ref> of Afghan proverbs in [[Dari Persian|Dari]] and English, part of an effort of nationbuilding, followed by a volume of [[Pashto]] proverbs in 2014.<ref>Edward Zellem. 2014. ''Mataluna: 151 Afghan Pashto Proverbs.'' Tampa: Cultures Direct Press.</ref>

===Cultural values===
[[File:Study proverb.PNG|thumb|Chinese proverb. It says, "Learn till old, live till old, and there is still three-tenths not learned," meaning that no matter how old you are, there is still more learning or studying left to do.]]
[[File:Better a monk.JPG|thumb|Thai proverb depicted visually at a temple, "Better a monk"]]
There is a longstanding debate among proverb scholars as to whether the cultural values of specific language communities are reflected (to varying degree) in their proverbs. Many claim that the proverbs of a particular culture reflect the values of that specific culture, at least to some degree. Many writers have asserted that the proverbs of their cultures reflect their culture and values; this can be seen in such titles as the following: ''An introduction to Kasena society and culture through their proverbs'',<ref>Albert Kanlisi Awedoba. 2000. ''An Introduction to Kasena Society and Culture Through Their Proverbs''. University Press Of America</ref> Prejudice, power, and poverty in Haiti: a study of a nation's culture as seen through its proverbs,<ref>Linda Tavernier-Almada. 1999. Prejudice, power, and poverty in Haiti: a study of a nation's culture as seen through its proverbs. ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' 16:325–350.</ref> Proverbiality and worldview in Maltese and Arabic proverbs,<ref>Ġorġ Mifsud-Chircop. 2001. Proverbiality and Worldview in Maltese and Arabic Proverbs. ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' 18:247–255.</ref> Fatalistic traits in Finnish proverbs,<ref>Maati Kuusi. 1994. Fatalistic Traits in Finnish Proverbs. ''The Wisdom of Many. Essays on the Proverb'', Eds. Wolfgang Mieder and Alan Dundes, 275–283. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. (Originally in ''Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore and Literature'', Ed. Helmer Ringgren. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967. 89–96.</ref> ''Vietnamese cultural patterns and values as expressed in proverbs'',<ref>Huynh Dinh Te. 1962. ''Vietnamese cultural patterns and values as expressed in proverbs''. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University.</ref> ''The Wisdom and Philosophy of the Gikuyu proverbs: The Kihooto worldview'',<ref>Gerald J. Wanjohi. 1997. ''The Wisdom and Philosophy of the Gikuyu Proverbs: The Kihooto Worldview''. Nairobi, Paulines.</ref> ''Spanish Grammar and Culture through Proverbs,''<ref>Woods, Richard, ed. 1988. ''Spanish Grammar and Culture through Proverbs.'' Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica.</ref> and "How Russian Proverbs Present the Russian National Character".<ref>Gibian, George. How Russian Proverbs Present the Russian National Character. ''Russianness: Studies on a Nation's Identity''. Ed. Robert L. Belknap. Ann Arbor (1990): 38–43.</ref> Kohistani has written a thesis to show how understanding Afghan Dari proverbs will help Europeans understand Afghan culture.<ref>Kohistani, Zahra. 2011. Understanding culture through proverbs. University of Amsterdam MA thesis. [http://dare.uva.nl/cgi/arno/show.cgi?fid=346423 Online access]</ref>

However, a number of scholars argue that such claims are not valid. They have used a variety of arguments. Grauberg argues that since many proverbs are so widely circulated they are reflections of broad human experience, not any one culture's unique viewpoint.<ref>Walter Grauberg. 1989. Proverbs and idioms: mirrors of national experience? ''Lexicographers and their works'', ed. by Gregory James, 94–99. Exeter: University of Exeter.</ref> Related to this line of argument, from a collection of 199 American proverbs, Jente showed that only 10 were coined in the USA, so that most of these proverbs would not reflect uniquely American values.<ref name="Richard Jente 1932">Richard Jente. 1931–1932. The American Proverb. ''American Speech'' 7:342–348.</ref> Giving another line of reasoning that proverbs should not be trusted as a simplistic guide to cultural values, Mieder once observed "proverbs come and go, that is, antiquated proverbs with messages and images we no longer relate to are dropped from our proverb repertoire, while new proverbs are created to reflect the mores and values of our time",<ref>Wolfgang Mieder. 1993. ''Proverbs are never out of season: Popular wisdom in the modern age''. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref> so old proverbs still in circulation might reflect past values of a culture more than its current values. Also, within any language's proverb repertoire, there may be "counter proverbs", proverbs that contradict each other on the surface<ref name="Charles Clay Doyle 2012"/> (see section above). When examining such counter proverbs, it is difficult to discern an underlying cultural value. With so many barriers to a simple calculation of values directly from proverbs, some feel "one cannot draw conclusions about values of speakers simply from the texts of proverbs".<ref>p. 261. Sw. Anand Prahlad. 1996. ''African American Proverbs in Context''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.</ref>

Many outsiders have studied proverbs to discern and understand cultural values and world view of cultural communities.<ref>Niemeyer, Larry L., "Proverbs : tools for world view studies : an exploratory comparison of the Bemba of Zambia and the Shona of Zimbabwe" (1982). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 886. http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/886</ref> These outsider scholars are confident that they have gained insights into the local cultures by studying proverbs, but this is not universally accepted.<ref name="Richard Jente 1932"/><ref>Grauberg, Walter. 1989. Proverbs and idioms: mirrors of national experience? In ''Lexicographers and their works'', ed. by Gregory James, 94–99. Exeter: University of Exeter.</ref><ref>Whiting, Bartlett J. 1994. ''When evensong and morrowsong accord: Three essays on the proverb'', edited by Joseph Harris and Wolfgang Mieder. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref><ref>p. xv. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004b. ''Proverbs: A Handbook''. (Greenwood Folklore Handbooks). Greenwood Press.</ref><ref>p. 146. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2008. ''Proverbs speak louder than words: Folk wisdom in art, culture, folklore, history, literature, and mass media''. New York: Peter Lang.</ref><ref>p. 124. Wolkomir, Richard. 2006. "Gold nuggets or fool's gold?" ''Magazine and newspaper articles on the (ir)relevance of proverbs and proverbial phrases'', Wolfgang Mieder and Janet Sobieski, eds., 117–125. (Supplement Series of Proverbium, 22.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref>

Seeking empirical evidence to evaluate the question of whether proverbs reflect a culture's values, some have counted the proverbs that support various values. For example, Moon lists what he sees as the top ten core cultural values of the [[Builsa]] society of Ghana, as exemplified by proverbs. He found that 18% of the proverbs he analyzed supported the value of being a member of the community, rather than being independent.<ref>p. 134. W. Jay Moon. 2009. ''African Proverbs Reveal Christianity in Culture: A Narrative Portrayal of Builsa Proverbs''. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications.</ref> This was corroboration to other evidence that collective community membership is an important value among the Builsa. In studying Tajik proverbs, Bell notes that the proverbs in his corpus "Consistently illustrate Tajik values" and "The most often observed proverbs reflect the focal and specific values" discerned in the thesis.<ref>p. 139 & 157. Evan Bell. 2009. ''An analysis of Tajik proverbs''. Masters thesis, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.</ref>

A study of English proverbs created since 1900 showed in the 1960s a sudden and significant increase in proverbs that reflected more casual attitudes toward sex.<ref>p. 120. Peter Unseth. Review of ''Dictionary of Modern Proverbs''. ''American Speech'' 90.1:117–121.</ref> Since the 1960s was also the decade of the [[Sexual revolution]], this shows a strong statistical link between the changed values of the decades and a change in the proverbs coined and used. Another study mining the same volume counted Anglo-American proverbs about religion to show that proverbs indicate attitudes toward religion are going downhill.<ref>Petrova, Roumyana. 2016. How Religious Are The Modern Anglo-American Proverbs: A Linguocultural Study. ''Proceedings of the world congress of the IASS/AIS'', Editor in Chief: Kristian Bankov. {{ISSN|2414-6862}}. [http://www.iass-ais.org/proceedings2014/view_lesson.php?id=81 Web access]</ref>

There are many examples where cultural values have been explained and illustrated by proverbs. For example, from India, the concept that birth determines one's nature "is illustrated in the oft-repeated proverb: there can be no friendship between grass-eaters and meat-eaters, between a food and its eater".<ref>p. 22, [[Patrick Olivelle]]. 2013. Talking Animals: Explorations in an Indian Literary Genre. ''Religions of South Asia'' 7.14–26.</ref> Proverbs have been used to explain and illustrate the [[Fula people|Fulani]] cultural value of ''pulaaku''.<ref>Rudolf Leger and Abubakar B. Mohammad. 2000. The concept of pulaaku mirrored in Fulfulde proverbs of the Gombe dialect. ''Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs'' 268, Band 14, Frankfurt a.M. 2000: 299–306.</ref> But using proverbs to ''illustrate'' a cultural value is not the same as using a collection of proverbs to ''discern'' cultural values. In a comparative study between Spanish and Jordanian proverbs it is defined the social imagination for the mother as an archetype in the context of role transformation and in contrast with the roles of husband, son and brother, in two societies which might be occasionally associated with sexist and /or rural ideologies.<ref>Sbaihat, Ahlam (2012). La imagen de la madre en el refranero español y jordano. Estudio de Paremiología comparada. España: Sociedad Española de Estudios Literarios de Cultura Popular, Oceanide, 5.</ref>

Some scholars have adopted a cautious approach, acknowledging at least a genuine, though limited, link between cultural values and proverbs: "The cultural portrait painted by proverbs may be fragmented, contradictory, or otherwise at variance with reality... but must be regarded not as accurate renderings but rather as tantalizing shadows of the culture which spawned them."<ref>p. 173.Sheila K. Webster. 1982. Women, Sex, and Marriage in Moroccan Proverbs. ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'' 14:173–184.</ref> There is not yet agreement on the issue of whether, and how much, cultural values are reflected in a culture's proverbs.

It is clear that the Soviet Union believed that proverbs had a direct link to the values of a culture, as they used them to try to create changes in the values of cultures within their sphere of domination. Sometimes they took old Russian proverbs and altered them into socialist forms.<ref>p. 84ff. Andrey Reznikov. 2009. ''Old wine in new bottles: Modern Russian anti-proverbs.'' (Supplement Series of ''Proverbium'', 27.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont</ref> These new proverbs promoted Socialism and its attendant values, such as atheism and collectivism, e.g. "Bread is given to us not by Christ, but by machines and collective farms" and "A good harvest is had only by a collective farm." They did not limit their efforts to Russian, but also produced "newly coined proverbs that conformed to socialist thought" in Tajik and other languages of the USSR.<ref>Evan Bell. 2009. ''An analysis of Tajik proverbs''. Masters thesis, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.</ref>
[[File:Proverb scroll.PNG|thumb|left|Scroll of the Biblical [[Book of Proverbs]]]]

===Religion===
Many proverbs from around the world address matters of ethics and expected of behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that proverbs are often important texts in religions. The most obvious example is the [[Book of Proverbs]] in the Bible. Additional proverbs have also been coined to support religious values, such as the following from [[Dari Persian|Dari]] of Afghanistan:<ref>p. 54, J. Christy Wilson, Jr. 2004. ''One hundred Afghan Persian proverbs'' 3rd, edition. Peshawar, Pakistan: InterLit Foundation.</ref> "In childhood you're playful, In youth you're lustful, In old age you're feeble, So when will you before God be worshipful?"

Clearly proverbs in religion are not limited to monotheists; among the [[Badagas]] of India ([[Shaivism|Sahivite]] Hindus), there is a traditional proverb "Catch hold of and join with the man who has placed sacred ash [on himself]."<ref>p. 601, Paul Hockings. 1988. ''Counsel from the Ancients: A study of Badaga proverbs, prayers, omens and curses''. Berlin: de Gruyter.</ref>  Proverbs are widely associated with large religions that draw from sacred books, but they are also used for religious purposes among groups with their own traditional religions, such as the Guji Oromo.<ref name="Tadesse Jaleta Jirata 2009"/> The broadest comparative study of proverbs across religions is ''The eleven religions and their proverbial lore, a comparative study. A reference book to the eleven surviving major religions of the world'' by Selwyn Gurney Champion, from 1945. Some sayings from sacred books also become proverbs, even if they were not obviously proverbs in the original passage of the sacred book.<ref>Ziyad Mohammad Gogazeh and Ahmad Husein Al-Afif. 2007. Los proverbios árabes extraidos del ''Corán'': recopilación, traducción, y estudio. ''Paremia'' 16: 129–138.</ref> For example, many quote "Be sure your sin will find you out" as a proverb from the Bible, but there is no evidence it was proverbial in its original usage ([[Book of Numbers|Numbers]] 32:23).

Not all religious references in proverbs are positive. Some are cynical, such as the Tajik and Uzbek proverb, "Do as the mullah says, not as he does."<ref>p. 130, Evan Bell. 2009. ''The wit and wisdom of the Tajiks: An analysis of Tajik proverbs''. Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, MA thesis.</ref><ref>p. 18. Ergashev, Moujrodkhon and Issokhon Niyozov. ''Proverbes et dictons d'Ouzbékistan.'' Paris: Editions Géorama, 2006.</ref> An Indian proverb is cynical about devotees of Hinduism: "[Only] When in distress, a man calls on Rama".<ref>p. 16, P. R. Gurdon. 1895. ''Some Assamese proverbs.'' Shillong, India: Assam Secretariat Printing Office.</ref> In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, some Ladakhi proverbs mock the lamas, e.g., "If the lama's own head does not come out cleanly, how will he do the drawing upwards of the dead?... used for deriding the immoral life of the lamas."<ref>p. 142. August Francke. 1901. A collection of Ladakhi proverbs. ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal'' 2: 135–148.</ref> There is an Italian proverb that mocks churches, "One barrel of wine can work more miracles than a church full of saints". There are so many Spanish proverbs mocking Catholic clergy that there is even a book of them, ''Refranero Anticlerical''.<ref>Esteban, José. 2010. Reino de Cordelia.</ref> Armenians have a proverb that mocks priests, "Outside a priest, inside a beast."<ref>p. 284. Sakayan, Dora. ''Armenian Proverbs: A Paremiological Study with an Anthology of 2,500 Armenian Folk Sayings''. Academic Resources Corp, 1994.</ref>

Proverbs do not have to explicitly mention religion or religious figures to be used to mock a religion, seen in the fact that in a collection of 555 proverbs from the [[Lur people|Lur]], a Muslim group in Iran, the explanations for 15 of them use illustrations that mock Muslim clerics.<ref>Peter Unseth (2017). Review of ''Warm Hearts and Sharp Tongues: Life in 555 Proverbs from the Zagros Mountains of Iran''. ''Iranian Studies'' 50:1, 163–167, {{doi|10.1080/00210862.2017.1269451}}</ref>

Dammann wrote, "In the [[Traditional African religions|[African] traditional religions]], specific religious ideas recede into the background... The influence of Islam manifests itself in African proverbs... Christian influences, on the contrary, are rare."<ref>p. 46. Ernst Dammann. 1972. Die Religion in Afrikanischen Sprichwörter und Rätseln. ''Anthropos'' 67:36–48. Quotation in English, from summary at end of article.</ref>  If widely true in Africa, this is likely due to the longer presence of Islam in many parts of Africa. Reflection of Christian values is common in Amharic proverbs of Ethiopia, an area that has had a presence of Christianity for well over 1,000 years. The Islamic proverbial reproduction may also be shown in the image of some animals such as the dog. Although dog is portrayed in many European proverbs as the most faithful friend of man, it is represented in some Islamic countries as impure, dirty, vile, cowardly, ungrateful and treacherous, in addition to links to negative human superstitions such as loneliness, indifference and bad luck.<ref>Sharab, Moayad; Sbaihat, Ahlam; Al Duweiri, Hussein (2013). La imagen del perro en la paremiología jordana: traducción y contraste con el español. University of Granada: Language Design, Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics, vol. 14, n. 1.</ref>

===Psychology===
Though much proverb scholarship is done by literary scholars, those studying the human mind have used proverbs in a variety of studies.<ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. "The use of proverbs in psychological testing." ''Journal of the Folklore Institute'' 15.1 (1978): 45–55.</ref> One of the earliest studies in this field is the ''Proverbs Test'' by Gorham, developed in 1956. A similar test is being prepared in German.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/neuropsy/testsE/sprichwort.html |title=Institut für Kognitive Neurowissenschaft |publisher=Ruhr-uni-bochum.de |date=2011-03-22 |access-date=2012-09-20}}</ref> Proverbs have been used to evaluate [[dementia]],<ref>Yamaguchi, Haruyasu; Yohko Maki, Tomoharu Yamaguchi. 2011. A figurative proverb test for dementia: rapid detection of disinhibition, excuse and [[confabulation]], causing discommunication. ''Psychogeriatrics'' Vol. 11.4: pp. 205–211.</ref><ref>Natalie C. Kaiser. 2013. What dementia reveals about proverb interpretation and its neuroanatomical correlates. ''Neuropsychologia'' 51:1726–1733.</ref><ref>Kempler, Daniel, Diana Van Lancker, and Stephen Read. 1988. Proverb and idiom comprehension in Alzheimers disease. ''Alzheimers Disease and Associated Disorders'' 2.1:38–49.</ref> study the [[cognitive development]] of children,<ref name="Richard P. Honeck 1997">Richard P. Honeck. A proverb in mind: the cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom. Routledge, 1997.</ref> measure the results of [[brain injuries]],<ref>Pp. 123ff, C. Thomas Gualtieri. 2002. ''Brain Injury and Mental Retardation: Psychopharmacology and Neuropsychiatry''. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.</ref> and study how the mind processes [[figurative language]].<ref name="Michael Kiang 2007"/><ref>Ulatowska, Hanna K., and Gloria S. Olness. "Reflections on the Nature of Proverbs: Evidence from Aphasia." ''Proverbium'' 15 (1998), 329–346. Schizophrenia has also been shown to affect the way people interpret proverbs.</ref><ref>Yi, You Gyoung, Dae Youl Kim, Woo Hyun Shim, Joo Young Oh, Sung Hyun Kim, Ho Sung Kim. (2017). Neural correlates of Korean proverb processing: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. ''Brain and behavior'' 7(10).</ref>

==Paremiology==
{{main|Paremiology}}

[[File:Books on proverb study.jpg|thumb|A sample of books used in the study of proverbs.]]
[[File:Proverb dictionaries.jpg|thumb|Various proverb dictionaries]]
The study of proverbs is called '''paremiology''' which has a variety of uses in the study of such topics as [[philosophy]], [[linguistics]], and [[folklore]]. There are several types and styles of proverbs which are analyzed within Paremiology, as is the use and misuse of familiar expressions which are not strictly 'proverbial' in the dictionary definition of being fixed sentences.

===Paremiological minimum===
Grigorii Permjakov<ref>{{Cite web|url= http://www2.arnes.si/~bridges/proverb_wisdom.htm|title=Photo and Web page about Permjakov}}</ref> developed the concept of the core set of proverbs that full members of society know, which he called the "paremiological minimum" (1979). For example, an adult American is expected to be familiar with "Birds of a feather flock together", part of the American paremiological minimum. However, an average adult American is not expected to know "Fair in the cradle, foul in the saddle", an old English proverb that is not part of the current American paremiological minimum. Thinking more widely than merely proverbs, Permjakov observed "every adult Russian language speaker (over 20 years of age) knows no fewer than 800 proverbs, proverbial expressions, popular literary quotations and other forms of cliches".<ref>p. 91 Grigorii L'vovich Permiakov. 1989. On the question of a Russian paremiological minimum. ''Proverbium'' 6:91–102.</ref> Studies of the paremiological minimum have been done for a limited number of languages, including Ukrainian,<ref>Vyshya, Natalia. 2008. Minimo paremiologioco ucraiano y peculiardades de traduccion. ''Paremia'' 17: 101–110.</ref> Russian,<ref>Grigorii L'vovich Permiakov. 1989. On the question of a Russian paremiological minimum. ''Proverbium'' 6:91–102.</ref> Hungarian,<ref>Katalin Vargha, Anna T. Litovkina. 2007. Proverb is as proverb does: A preliminary analysis of a survey on the use of Hungarian proverbs and anti-proverbs. ''Acta Ethnographica Hungarica'' 52.1: 135–155.</ref><ref>Forgács, Tomás. 2014. Über das Parömische minimum des Ungarischen. ''Proverbium'' 31:255–278.</ref> Czech,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/doc/parmin.rtf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070609230916/http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/doc/parmin.rtf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-06-09 |title=Paremiological Minimum of Czech: The Corpus Evidence – 1. Introduction. Data for Proverb Research |publisher=Ucnk.ff.cuni.cz |access-date=2012-09-20}}</ref> Somali,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://kapchits.narod.ru/books.htm |title=Kapchits article on popularity of various Somali proverbs}}</ref> Chinese,<ref>Huang, Xiaofang, and Abdullah Mohd Nawi. "Establishment of a Chinese Paremiological Minimum Based on International English Media." Theory & Practice in Language Studies (TPLS) 14, no. 1 (2024).</ref> Nepali,<ref>pp. 389–490, Valerie Inchley. 2010. ''Sitting in my house dreaming of Nepal.'' Kathmandu: EKTA.</ref> Gujarati,<ref>Doctor, Raymond. 2005. Towards a Paremiological Minimum For Gujarati Proverbs. ''Proverbium'' 22:51–70.</ref> Spanish,<ref>Julia Sevilla Muñoz. 2010. El refranero hoy. ''Paremia'' 19: 215–226.</ref><ref>SEVILLA MUÑOZ, Julia y BARBADILLO DE LA FUENTE, M.ª Teresa, El mínimo paremiológico español. Madrid: Centro Virtual Cervantes (Instituto Cervantes). Biblioteca fraseológica y paremiológica, serie «Mínimo paremiológico», n.º 2, 2021, 215 p., {{ISBN|978-84-09-31657-1}}</ref> [[Esperanto]],<ref>Fielder, Sabine. 1999. Phraseology in planned languages. ''[[Language Problems and Language Planning]]'' 23.2: 175–187, see p. 178.</ref> Polish,<ref>Szpila, Grzegorz. Minimum paremiologiczne języka polskiego – badanie pilotażowe", ''Język Polski'' 1/2002: 36–42.</ref> [[Croatian language|Croatian]]<ref>Grzybek, Peter, Danica Škara, and Zdenka Heyken. "Der Weisheit der Gasse auf der Spur. Eine empirische Pilotstudie zur Bekanntheit kroatischer Sprichwörter." ''Zeitschrift für Balkanologie'' 29, no. 2 (1993): 85-98.</ref> and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]].<ref>Ferrero, Ana María Díaz. "Análisis de contenido para la elaboración del mínimo paremiológico portugués." Paremia 34 (2024): 143-154.</ref> Two noted examples of attempts to establish a paremiological minimum in America are by Haas (2008) and [[E. D. Hirsch, Jr.|Hirsch]], Kett, and Trefil (1988), the latter more prescriptive than descriptive. There is not yet a recognized standard method for calculating the paremiological minimum, as seen by comparing the various efforts to establish the paremiological minimum in a number of languages.<ref>Ďurčo, Peter. 2014. Empirical Research and Paremiological Minimum. In ''Introduction to Paremiology. A Comprehensive Guide to Proverb Studies'' edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga, 183–205. Berlin: De Gruyter Open. Online: [http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/449649 Open Access version].</ref> "No really convincing criteria have been offered for the size of a paremiological minimum."<ref>Čermák, František. "Paremiological minimum of Czech: The corpus evidence." ''Flut von Texten - Vielvalt der Kulturen. Ascona 2001 zur Methodologie und Kulturspezifik der Phraseologie,'' edited by Harald Burger, Annelies Häcki Bufofer, G. Greciano. Hohengehren: Schneider Verlag 2003, 15-31.</ref>

===Sources for proverb study===
A seminal work in the study of proverbs is Archer Taylor's ''The Proverb'' (1931), later republished by [[Wolfgang Mieder]] with Taylor's Index included (1985/1934). A good introduction to the study of proverbs is Mieder's 2004 volume, ''Proverbs: A Handbook''. Mieder has also published a series of bibliography volumes on proverb research, as well as a large number of articles and other books in the field. Stan Nussbaum has edited a large collection on proverbs of Africa, published on a CD, including reprints of out-of-print collections, original collections, and works on analysis, bibliography, and application of proverbs to Christian ministry (1998).<ref>Mbiti, John. 2002. The African proverbs project and after. ''Lexikos'', 12(1): 256–263.</ref> Paczolay has compared proverbs across Europe and published a collection of similar proverbs in 55 languages (1997). There is an academic journal of proverb study, ''[[Proverbium (journal)|Proverbium]]'' ({{ISSN|0743-782X}}), many back issues of which are available online.<ref>{{cite journal |title=[Search results: Proverbium] |journal=Proverbium |publisher=Universiṭah ha-ʻIvrit bi-Yerushalayim / University of Vermont / Ohio State University |date=2023 |access-date=1 November 2023 |url= http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006930797 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130715020433/http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006930797 |url-status=dead |archive-date=15 July 2013 |via=HathiTrust}}</ref> A volume containing articles on a wide variety of topics touching on proverbs was edited by Mieder and [[Alan Dundes]] (1994/1981). ''Paremia'' is a Spanish-language journal on proverbs, with articles available online.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/paremia/ |title=Web access to ''Paremia''}}</ref> There are also papers on proverbs published in conference proceedings volumes from the annual Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.colloquium-proverbs.org/icp/en/ |title=Conference website |publisher=Colloquium-proverbs.org |access-date=2013-08-30}}</ref> in [[Tavira Municipality|Tavira]], Portugal. Mieder has published a two-volume ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology'', with a topical, language, and author index.<ref>Wolfgang Mieder. 2008. ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</ref> Mieder has also published a bibliography of collections of proverbs from around the world.<ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2011. ''International Bibliography of Paremiography''. (Supplement Series of Proverbium, 34.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref> A broad introduction to proverb study, ''Introduction to Paremiology'', edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga, has been published in both hardcover and free open access, with articles by a dozen different authors.<ref>''Introduction to Paremiology. A Comprehensive Guide to Proverb Studies'' edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga. Berlin: De Gruyter Open. Online: [http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/449649 Open Access version].</ref> In 2023, Wolfgang Mieder produced a new bibliography volume with 6,364 entries, available for free download from the Web: ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology (2008-2022)''.<ref>[https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/ff/catalog/book/15 PDF of Mieder's bibliography for free download]</ref> For those who are studying traditional proverbs, there is a book of ideas and techniques for proverb study, freely downloadable: ''Proverb Studies: A Practical Manual''.<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2025. ''Proverb Studies: A Practical Manual'' [https://www.diu.edu/documents/Unseth_Proverb-Studies.pdf]</ref>

===Noteworthy proverb scholars (paremiologists and paremiographers)===
<gallery>
File:Holbein-erasmus.jpg|[[Erasmus]] (1466–1536)
File:Retrato de Juan de Mal Lara.jpg|[[Juan de Mal Lara]] (1524–1571)
File:Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther.png|Bishop [[Samuel Ajayi Crowther]] ({{Circa|1809}}–1891)
File:Elias Lönnrot portrait-2.jpg|[[Elias Lönnrot]] (1802–1884)
File:Samuel Adalberg.jpg|[[Samuel Adalberg]] (1868–1939)
File:Photo Demetrios Loukatos.jpg|[[Dimitrios Loukatos]] (1908–2003)
File:Wolfgang Mieder.jpg|[[Wolfgang Mieder]]
File:MinekeSchipper.JPG|[[Mineke Schipper]]
File:Galit Hasan Rokem.jpg|[[Galit Hasan-Rokem]]
File:Dora Sakayan, photograph by Marine Anakhatounian.jpg|[[Dora Sakayan]]
File:Gotzon Garate.jpg|[[Gotzon Garate Goihartzun]]
File:Joe Healey in full African Shirt.jpeg|[[Joseph G. Healey|Joe Healey]]
File:Andrzej Halemba.jpg|[[Andrzej Halemba]]
</gallery>
The study of proverbs has been built by a number of notable scholars and contributors. Earlier scholars were more concerned with collecting than analyzing. [[Desiderius Erasmus]] was a Latin scholar (1466–1536), whose collection of Latin proverbs, known as ''[[Adagia]]'', spread Latin proverbs across Europe.<ref>Erasmus, Desiderius. Adages in Collected Works of Erasmus. Trans. R.A.B Mynors et al. Volumes 31–36. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982–2006.</ref> [[Juan de Mal Lara]] was a 16th century Spanish scholar, one of his books being 1568 ''Philosophia vulgar'', the first part of which contains one thousand and one sayings. Hernán Núñez published a collection of Spanish proverbs (1555).

In the 19th century, a growing number of scholars published collections of proverbs, such as [[Samuel Adalberg]] who published collections of Yiddish proverbs (1888 & 1890) and Polish proverbs (1889–1894). [[Samuel Ajayi Crowther]], the [[Anglican]] bishop in Nigeria, published a collection of [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]] proverbs (1852). [[Elias Lönnrot]] published a collection of Finnish proverbs (1842).

From the 20th century onwards, proverb scholars were involved in not only collecting proverbs, but also analyzing and comparing proverbs. [[Alan Dundes]] was a 20th century American folklorist whose scholarly output on proverbs led Wolfgang Mieder to refer to him as a "pioneering paremiologist".<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol35/mieder.pdf |title=Alan Dundes as Pioneering Paremiologist}}</ref> [[Matti Kuusi]] was a 20th century Finnish paremiologist, the creator of the Matti Kuusi international type system of proverbs.<ref>Lauhakangas, Outi. 2013. The Matti Kuusi International Database of Proverbs. ''Oral Tradition'' 28/2 (2013): 217–222. ([http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/28ii/06_28.2.pdf Article on his Proverb Type System.] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171201034759/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/28ii/06_28.2.pdf |date=2017-12-01}})</ref> With encouragement from [[Archer Taylor]],<ref>Lauhakangas, Outi. 2014. Categorization of proverbs, p. 59. ''Introduction to Paremiology'', ed. by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga, pp. 49–67. Berlin: de Gruyter.</ref> he founded the journal ''Proverbium: Bulletin d'Information sur les Recherches Parémiologiques'', published from 1965 to 1975 by the Society for Finnish Literature, which was later restarted as an annual volume, ''[[Proverbium (journal)|Proverbium: International Yearbook of Proverb Scholarship]]''. Archer Taylor was a 20th century American scholar, best known for his "magisterial"<ref>p. xiv, Mieder, Wolfgang. ''Proverbs: A handbook''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.</ref> book ''The Proverb''.<ref>1931. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref> [[Dimitrios Loukatos]] was a 20th century Greek proverb scholar, author of such works as ''Aetiological Tales of Modern Greek Proverbs''.<ref>''Aetiological Tales of Modern Greek Proverbs'' (Ermis: Athens, 1972).</ref> [[Arvo Krikmann]] (1939–2017) was an Estonian proverb scholar, whom Wolfgang Mieder called "one of the leading paremiologists in the world"<ref>p. vi. Wolfgang Mieder. 2009. Editor’s Preface. ''Proverb semantics: Studies in structure, logic, and metaphor'', edited by Wolfgang Mieder, pp. v-viii. (Supplement Series to ''Proverbium'', 29.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref> and "master folklorist and paremiologist".<ref>p. 5. Wolfgang Mieder. Arvo Krikmann: Master folklorist and paremiologist. ''Proverbium'' 31: 1–10.</ref> [[Elisabeth Piirainen]] was a German scholar with 50 proverb-related publications.<ref>p. 640–646. Wolfgang Mieder. 2009 ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology''. Berlin: de Gruyter.</ref>

Current proverb scholars have continued the trend to be involved in analysis as well as collection of proverbs. [[Claude Buridant]] is a 20th century French scholar whose work has concentrated on [[Romance languages]].<ref>1976. Nature and function of proverbs in jeux-partis. ''Revue des sciences humaines'' 163.3 (1976): 377–418.</ref> [[Galit Hasan-Rokem]] is an Israeli scholar, associate editor of ''Proverbium: The yearbook of international proverb scholarship'', since 1984. She has written on proverbs in Jewish traditions.<ref>Hasan-Rokem, Galit. Web of life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic literature. Stanford University Press, 2000.</ref> [[Joseph G. Healey]] is an American Catholic missionary in Kenya who has led a movement to sponsor African proverb scholars to collect proverbs from their own language communities.<ref>http://www.afriprov.org/index.php/meetings/624-minutes-of-the-meeting-of-the-african-proverbs-working-group-saturday-28-april-2012-.html {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171201041820/http://www.afriprov.org/index.php/meetings/624-minutes-of-the-meeting-of-the-african-proverbs-working-group-saturday-28-april-2012-.html |date=2017-12-01}} ''Minutes of the Meeting of the African Proverbs Working Group,'' ''Christ the Teacher Parish, Kenyatta University'' Nairobi, Kenya, Saturday, 28 April 2012</ref> This led Wolfgang Mieder to dedicate the "International Bibliography of New and Reprinted Proverb Collections" section of ''Proverbium'' 32 to Healey.<ref>p. 457. International Bibliography of New and Reprinted Proverb Collections. ''Proverbium'' 32: 457–466.</ref> [[Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett]] is a scholar of Jewish history and folklore, including proverbs.<ref>Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. "Toward a theory of proverb meaning." ''Proverbium'' 22 (1973): 821–827.</ref> [[Wolfgang Mieder]] is a German-born proverb scholar who has worked his entire academic career in the US. He is the editor of ''Proverbium'' and the author of the two volume ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology''.<ref>2009 ''International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology''. Berlin: de Gruyter.</ref> He has been honored by four [[festschrift]] publications.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.uvm.edu/~cas/?Page=News&storyID=13676|title=College of Arts and Sciences – College of Arts and Sciences – The University of Vermont|website=www.uvm.edu}}</ref><ref>Kevin McKenna, ed. 2009. ''The Proverbial 'Pied Piper': A Festschrift Volume of Essays in Honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday.'' New York: Peter Lang. {{ISBN|978-1-4331-0489-3}}</ref><ref>Christian Grandl and Kevin McKenna, ed. 2015. Bis dat, qui cito dat Gegengabe in Paremiology, Folklore, Language and Literature Honoring Wolfgang Mieder on His Seventieth Birthday.Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. {{ISBN|978-3-631-64872-8}}</ref><ref>Nolte, Andreas and Dennis Mahoney. 2019. ''Living by the Golden Rule: Mentor – Scholar – World Citizen: A Festschrift for Wolfgang Mieder’s 75th Birthday.'' Bern: Peter Lang.</ref> He has also been recognized by biographical publications that focused on his scholarship.<ref>Lauhakangas, Outi. 2012. In honorem Wolfgang Mieder. In ''Program of the Sixth Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs, 4th to 11th November 2012, at Tavira, Portugal,'' Rui B. Soares and Outi Lauhakangas, eds., pp. 81–84. Tavira: Tipograpfia Tavirense.</ref><ref>Jones, Amy. 2012. Wolfgang Mieder: Ein Fuβ in beiden Ländern. In ''Sprache als Heimat'', A. Jones, ed. ''Quasi. Middlebury [College] Zeitschrift'' 1:52–58.</ref> [[Dora Sakayan]] is a scholar who has written about German and Armenian studies, including ''Armenian Proverbs: A Paremiological Study with an Anthology of 2,500 Armenian Folk Sayings Selected and Translated into English''.<ref>''Armenian Proverbs: A Paremiological Study with an Anthology of 2,500 Armenian Folk Sayings Selected and Translated into English'', Delmar & New York: Caravan Books, First edition: 1994, Second and revised edition: 1995</ref> An extensive introduction addresses the language and structure,<ref>Sakayan, Dora. "On the Grammar of Armenian Proverbs." In: John A. C. Greppin (ed.), ''Proceedings. Fourth International Conference on Armenian Linguistics''. [[Cleveland State University]], Cleveland, September 14–19, 1991, Delmar & New York: Caravan Books, 1992, pp. 171–201</ref> as well as the origin of Armenian proverbs (international, borrowed and specifically Armenian proverbs). [[Mineke Schipper]] is a Dutch scholar, best known for her book of worldwide proverbs about women, ''Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet – Women in Proverbs from Around the World''.<ref>Yale University Press, 2004</ref> [[Edward Zellem]] is an American proverb scholar who has edited books of Afghan proverbs, developed a method of collecting proverbs via the Web.<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2016. Comparing methods of collecting proverbs: Learning to value working with a community, p. 7.[http://www.gial.edu/documents/gialens/Vol8-3/Unseth_collecting_proverbs.pdf Comparing methods of collecting proverbs] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160822202810/http://www.gial.edu/documents/gialens/Vol8-3/Unseth_collecting_proverbs.pdf |date=2016-08-22}}</ref>

== See also ==
* {{annotated link|Anti-proverb}}
* {{annotated link|Aphorism}}
* {{annotated link|Blason Populaire}}
* {{annotated link|Book of Proverbs}}
* {{annotated link|Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable}}
* {{annotated link|Brocard (law)}}
* {{annotated link|Legal maxim}}
* {{annotated link|List of proverbial phrases}}
* {{annotated link|Maxim (philosophy)|Maxim}}
* {{annotated link|Old wives' tale}}
* {{annotated link|Paremiology}}
* {{annotated link|Paremiography}}
* {{annotated link|Paruntuk Kana}}
* {{annotated link|Platitude}}
* {{annotated link|Proverbial phrase}}
* {{annotated link|Proverbium}}
* {{annotated link|Saying}}
* {{annotated link|Truthism}}
* [[q:English proverbs|Wikiquote:English proverbs]]
* [[wikt:Wiktionary:Proverbs|Wiktionary:Proverbs]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
* Bailey, Clinton. 2004. ''A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev.'' Yale University Press. {{isbn|978-0300098440}}. {{oclc|762594024}}.
* Borajo, Daniel, Juan Rios, M. Alicia Perez, and Juan Pazos. 1990. Dominoes as a domain where to use proverbs as heuristics. ''Data & Knowledge Engineering'' 5:129–137.
* Christy, Robert. 1887. [http://www.bartleby.com/89/ Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages]. New York, London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
* Dominguez Barajas, Elias. 2010. ''The function of proverbs in discourse''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. {{isbn|978-3110224887}}. {{oclc|759758090}}.
*  Flonta, Teodor. 1995. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110211161837/http://www.deproverbio.com/index.php De Proverbio – International Journal of Proverb Studies]. Hobart, Australia. Department of Modern Languages, University of Tasmania, Australia. {{oclc|939086054}}.
* Grzybek, Peter. "Proverb." ''Simple Forms: An Encyclopaedia of Simple Text-Types in Lore and Literature'', ed. Walter Koch. Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1994. 227–41. {{isbn|978-3883394060}}. {{oclc|247469217}}.
* Haas, Heather. 2008. Proverb familiarity in the United States: Cross-regional comparisons of the paremiological minimum. ''[[Journal of American Folklore]]'' 121.481: pp. 319–347.
* Harris, Richard L. (2017). [https://web.archive.org/web/20170312154947/http://www.usask.ca/english/icelanders/ Concordance to the Proverbs and Proverbial Materials in the Old Icelandic Sagas]. University of Saskatchewan.
* Hildebrandt, Ted. (2005). [https://web.archive.org/web/20130319054509/http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/20-Proverbs/Text/Bibliography/Proverbs-Bibliography.htm Proverbs: Rough and Working Bibliography]. Gordon College.
* Hirsch, E. D., Joseph Kett, Jame Trefil. 1988. ''The dictionary of cultural literacy''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
* Mac Coinnigh, Marcas. 2012. Syntactic Structures in Irish-Language Proverbs. ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' 29, 95–136.
* Mieder, Wolfgang. 1982. Proverbs in Nazi Germany: The Promulgation of Anti-Semitism and Stereotypes Through Folklore. ''The Journal of American Folklore'' 95, No. 378, pp. 435–464.
* Mieder, Wolfgang. 2001. ''International Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography, with supplements''. New York: Garland Publishing. {{isbn|978-0820457079}}. {{oclc|916748443}}.
* Mieder, Wolfgang. 1994. ''Wise Words. Essays on the Proverb''. New York: Garland.
* Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004a. ''The Netherlandish Proverbs''. (Supplement series of ''Proverbium'', 16.) Burlington: University of Vermont.
* Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004b. ''Proverbs: A Handbook''. (Greenwood Folklore Handbooks). Greenwood Press.
* Mieder, Wolfgang and Alan Dundes. 1994. ''The wisdom of many: essays on the proverb''. (Originally published in 1981 by Garland.) Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
* Mieder, Wolfgang and Anna Tothne Litovkina. 2002. ''Twisted Wisdom: Modern Anti-Proverbs''. DeProverbio.
* Mieder, Wolfgang and Janet Sobieski. 1999. ''Proverb iconography: an international bibliography''. Bern: Peter Lang.
* Mitchell, David. 2001. ''Go Proverbs'' (reprint of 1980). {{ISBN|0-9706193-1-6}}. Slate and Shell.
* Nussbaum, Stan. 1998. ''The Wisdom of African Proverbs'' (CD-ROM). Colorado Springs: Global Mapping International.
* Obeng, S. G. 1996. The Proverb as a Mitigating and Politeness Strategy in Akan Discourse. ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 38(3), 521–549.
* Paczolay, Gyula. 1997. ''European Proverbs in 55 Languages''. Veszpre'm, Hungary. {{isbn|978-1875943449}}. {{oclc|52291221}}.
* Permiakov, Grigorii. 1979. From proverb to Folk-tale: Notes on the general theory of cliche. Moscow: Nauka.
* Raymond, Joseph. 1956. Tension in proverbs: more light on international understanding. ''Western Folklore'' 15.3:153–158.
* Speake, Jennifer, and John A. Simpson. (2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. {{isbn|9780198734901}}. {{oclc|931789403}}.
* Steen, Francis. 2000. [http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Proverbs/Bibliography.html Proverb Bibliography]. CogWeb – Cognitive Cultural Studies. University of California.
* [[Steven Shapin|Shapin, Steven]], "Proverbial economies. How and understanding of some linguistic and social features of common sense can throw light on more prestigious bodies of knowledge, science for example". Chapter 13 (pp. 315–350) of ''Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority'', [[Johns Hopkins University Press]], 2010, 568 pages ({{ISBN|978-0-8018-9421-3}}). First published in the ''[[Bulletin of the History of Medicine]]'', number 77, pp. 263–297, 2003.
* Taylor, Archer. 1985. ''The Proverb and an index to "The Proverb"'', with an Introduction and Bibliography by Wolfgang Mieder. Bern: Peter Lang.

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary|Appendix:English proverbs}}
{{Wikiquote|Proverbs}}
{{Wikiquote|Category:Proverbs}}
{{Commons category|Proverbs}}
* [http://www.listofproverbs.com The List of World Proverbs]. Grouped by proverb origin.

{{Folklore genres}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Portal bar|Languages|Philosophy}}

[[Category:Christian genres]]
[[Category:Cultural anthropology]]
[[Category:Oral tradition]]
[[Category:Proverbs| ]]
[[Category:Literary genres]]
[[Category:Literary theory]]