Who was the person to first coin the phrase - "The grass is always greener on the other side"?

Question

Is it from a text? A poem/novel/play?

Answer 1

Aesop, in the fables.

Answer 2

1.The original meaning of this idiom comes from when a person would
look over their garden fence and think that the neighbour's grass was greener, and therefore better.

2.One of the most frequent questions that people ask of a paremiologist is, without doubt, how old a particular proverb might be. While the origin of some proverbs has been studied in detailed diachronic essays or monographs,1 very little is actually known about the precise historical dissemination of most proverbs. In fact, each and every proverb would need a very careful investigation in order to establish its source and traditional use over time. For such ancient and internationally known proverbs as "Big fish eat little fish"2 this becomes a complex project going back to classical antiquity and involving numerous foreign languages. But establishing the possible beginning of a more recent proverb is equally challenging, as can be seen from the following attempt to determine the origin and continued use of the American proverb "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence".

This proverb certainly belongs to one of the most commonly used proverbs in the English language. This should not be surprising since it expresses the only too human idea of discontent, envy, and jealousy in a metaphor which is easily understood. Interestingly enough, the proverb is also literally true as has been demonstrated by James Pomerantz in a scientific article on "'The Grass is always Greener': An Ecological Analysis of an Old Aphorism" (1983).3 This scholar proves that optical and perceptual laws alone will make the grass at a distance look greener to the human eye than the blades of grass perpendicular to the ground. The "truth" of this metaphorical proverb can, of course, also be observed often enough in the countryside when a cow or a horse is trying to get at that juicy green grass just on the other side of the fence. And since people are equally dissatisfied with their lot in life, it should not surprise anyone that a modern psychologist has spoken of "the 'greener grass' phenomenon"4 by which modern individuals continually evaluate supposedly better alternatives for themselves.

The proverb thus expresses a basic behavioral truth in a rather universal metaphor - after all, grass and fences aren't exactly anything new. This should imply that the proverb belongs to those ancient bits of wisdom that everybody knows, but when one consults the standard paremiographical works, it comes as quite a surprise to see that the earliest recorded reference stems from 1957!5 This appears absurd, and there are bound to be native American speakers who will instantly claim that they have heard or even used this proverb long before the 1950's. But that claim needs to be proven in light of what Archer Taylor has called the apparent "incompleteness of collections of proverbs".6 The following remarks will present a few precursors to this proverb as well as some synchronic variants, and it will be established that the "grass is always greener" proverb is at least a bit older than proverb collections would have us believe. In addition to tracing the lexicographical history of the proverb it will also be studied in its traditional and innovative use as the title of novels, plays, and magazine or newspaper articles. Its iconographic depiction in cartoons, caricatures, comic strips, postcards, and photographs will also be analyzed with a special emphasis on modern parodies.

The renowned Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (1970) does not even have a separate entry for the proverb "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Instead it lists the Latin proverb "Fertilior seges est alieno semper in arvo" cited by Erasmus of Rotterdam which was published in English translation by Richard Taverner in 1545 as "The corne in an other mans ground semeth euer more fertyll and plentifull then doth oure owne".7 While this proverb gained some currency in the 16th and 17th centuries, it is not in common use any longer. But the editor of this proverb collection is of the opinion that it might be an early precursor of the "grass is always greener" proverb, for he lists Hugh and Margaret Williams' play with the title The Grass is Greener (1959) with the addition of "[on] the other side of the hedge" as a modern variant.8 While the idea of the two proverbs is clearly similar, it is certainly questionable to consider the "grass" text as a variant of the earlier proverb.9

After all, there are some other proverbs with the same meaning that come to mind as possible precursors as well. There is the proverb "Hills are (look) green (blue) far away" that was recorded as early as 1887 and continues to be in use in a number of variants to the present day.10 The same is true for the proverb "Distant pastures always look greener"11 which dates back at least to 1936. The proverb "Distant fields look greener"12 was recorded by field researchers between 1945 and 1980, and Muriel Hughes registered the proverb "Cows prefer the grass on the other side of the fence"13 in 1960 in Vermont. These texts contain at least some elements of the proverb under discussion, as for example the color green, the grass, or the fence. While the first text predates the earliest citation of the "grass is always greener" proverb, all the others are actually of a later date and could be considered variants of that very proverb.

Answer 3

thats not how it goes.it's the grass isn't always greener on the other
side of the fence.

Answer 4

I dont know but how true it is.

Answer 5

wow im unsure but sometimes it true and sometimes not.Lol...