1. Definition and classification. Definition attempts -- Proverb markers and meanings -- Origin and dissemination of proverbs -- Traditional forms related to the proverb -- The international type system of proverbs -- Types of international proverb collections -- Major Anglo-American proverb collections -- Various specialized proverb collections -- Selected bibliography -- 2. Examples and texts. "Big fish eat little fish" : a classical proverb about human nature -- "First come, first served" : a medieval legal proverb from the millers -- "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" : a proverb's way from Germany to America -- "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" : a slanderous proverbial stereotype -- "Good fences make good neighbors" : an ambiguous proverb of relationships -- "A picture is worth a thousand words" : an advertising slogan turned American proverb -- Proverbs from different cultures and languages -- Authentic American proverbs -- Regional American proverbs -- Native American proverbs -- African American proverbs -- Selected bibliography -- 3. Scholarship and approaches. Proverb journals, essay volumes, and bibliographies -- Proverb collections and future paremiography -- Comprehensive overviews of paremiology -- Empiricism and paremiological minima -- Linguistic and semiotic considerations -- Performance (speech acts) in social contexts -- Issues of culture, folklore, and history -- Politics, stereotypes, and worldview -- Sociology, psychology, and psychiatry -- Use in folk narratives and literature -- Religion and wisdom literature -- Pedagogy and language teaching -- Iconography : proverbs as art -- Mass media and popular culture -- Selected bibliography -- 4. Contexts. "A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs" : Lord Chesterfield's tilting at proverbial windmills -- "Early to bed and early to rise" : from proverb to Benjamin Franklin and back -- "Behind the cloud the sun is shining" : Abraham Lincoln's proverbial fight against slavery -- "Conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks" : Charles Dickens's proverbial language -- "Make hell while the sun shines" : proverbial war rhetoric of Winston S. Churchill -- "Man is a wolf to man" : proverbial dialectics in Bertolt Brecht -- Benjamin Franklin's "The way to wealth" -- Proverb poems and popular songs -- Proverbs in caricatures, cartoons, and comics -- Proverbs and the world of advertising -- Proverbs as headlines and slogans -- Bibliography. Bibliographies -- Proverb journals -- Major proverb studies -- Multilingual proverb collections -- Bilingual proverb collections -- Anglo-American proverb collections -- Regional and thematic proverb collections.