Archer Taylor on the definition of the term 'proverb'

Archer Taylor, The Proverb, 1931, p. 3:

The definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking; and should we fortunately combine in a single definition all the essential elements and give each the proper emphasis, we should not even then have a touchstone. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not.

Those who do not speak a language can never recognize all its proverbs, and similarly much that is truly proverbial escapes us in Elizabethan and older English.

Let us be content with recognizing that a proverb is a saying current among the folk. At least so much of a definition is indisputable.