ProverbCommunicationAmerican origin1921

A picture is worth a thousand words

Meaning: Visual information communicates more effectively than text.

Origin: An American advertising slogan dressed up as ancient wisdom. The advertising man Fred R. Barnard used "One look is worth a thousand words" in the trade journal Printers' Ink in 1921, and in 1927 ran "One picture is worth ten thousand words" under the label "Chinese proverb," to make it sound venerable. No Chinese source for it has ever been found.

Equivalents in French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Russian, and 2 more languages

  • French: Une image vaut mille mots (literally: An image is worth a thousand words)
  • Spanish: Una imagen vale más que mil palabras (literally: An image is worth more than a thousand words)
  • Japanese: 百聞は一見に如かず (Hyakubun wa ikken ni shikazu) (literally: Hearing a hundred times is not as good as seeing once)
  • German: Ein Bild sagt mehr als tausend Worte (literally: A picture says more than a thousand words)
  • Russian: Лучше один раз увидеть, чем сто раз услышать (Luchshe odin raz uvidet', chem sto raz uslyshat') (literally: Better to see once than hear a hundred times)
  • Chinese: 百闻不如一见 (Bǎi wén bù rú yí jiàn) (literally: A hundred hearings aren't worth one look)
  • Korean: 백문이 불여일견 (Baengmuni bullyeoilgyeon) (literally: Hearing a hundred times is not like seeing once)

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