Japanese proverbs (kotowaza)

Kotowaza (諺) are Japan's proverbs — centuries of folk wisdom packed into vivid, concrete images. Monkeys fall from trees (even experts fail), frogs in wells know nothing of the ocean, and the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. They surface constantly in conversation, often trimmed to their first few words because everyone knows the rest.

Many keep bits of classical grammar alive — the 従え in 郷に入っては郷に従え is an old imperative, and 如かず means "is no match for" — so proverbs double as a gentle first exposure to older Japanese. Their fixed form makes them easier to memorize than their length suggests.

The list below is every entry tagged as a proverb in the dictionary. Shorter figurative expressions that work inside a sentence — 猫に小判, 花より団子 — live in the idioms collection instead.