Abstract
Proverbial expressions, such as Don't judge a book by its cover, It's best to let sleeping dogs lie, and The early bird catches the worm, are pervasive in everyday speech, writing, and literature.This article explores how proverbs reveal enduring individual and cultural themes that provide solace and guidance to people in their ordinary lives. I describe the linguistic properties of proverbs, the logic of proverbs, how proverbs reflect widely-held beliefs about human behavior, proverbs and thought disorders, and how proverbs exhibit concrete manifestations of metaphorical schemes of thought.Proverbs function as thematic devices to unite speakers, speakers to their communities, and communities to ideas of universal “truth” in human experience. Speakers may also create novel proverbs to question the validity of more familiar proverbial themes.
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