Proverb

A proverb is a short, complete, rhythmically organized saying of folk wisdom with a didactic content, possessing both literal and figurative meaning and grammatical completeness (a sentence): 'All that glitters is not gold,' 'God gives to the one who rises early.' Unlike a saying (prykazka), a proverb expresses a finished judgment-thought. Proverbs are characterized by imagery, parallelism, antithesis, rhyme, and concision. It is the most ancient aphoristic genre, concentrating the ethical and practical experience of a people. The fullest collection of Ukrainian paremiography is Matvii Nomys's 'Ukrainian Sayings, Proverbs and the Like' (1864) and Ivan Franko's 'Galician-Ruthenian Folk Sayings' (1901–1910). Proverbs were actively used by Hryhorii Skovoroda, Taras Shevchenko, and Panas Myrny.