SAT Example (Short Reading Comprehension)

Proverbs are hard to define, but one could do worse than the pithy definition offered by an 18th-century British statesman, Load John Russell.

A proverb, Russell is said to have remarked at breakfast, is "one man's wit and all men's wisdom." Proverbs have been identified in all the world's spoken languages, and ─unlike Lord Russell's adage─ they are almost always anonymous.

Interestingly, similar sayings seem to have developed independently in many parts of the world. For example, the English saying, "A bird in the hand in worth two in the bush," has counterparts in Romania, Spain, and Iceland.