This study aims at exploring universality and particularity in Korean proverbs. First of all, the universal traits were classified in terms of form, content, and rhetoric. It is revealed that Korean proverbs contain formal characteristics such as shortness, meter, syntactic features. As for subject Korean proverbs are found to hold salt or popularity, and in the meantime to exploit analogy and antithesis for rhetorical purpose. The distinctiveness in Korean proverbs turns out to entail ``double sttuctures of spoken language and Chinese characters``, ``social, geographical, historical, and cultural aspects of Korea``, ``reflections of Korean folk-tales and literature``, ``applications of Korean vulgar beliefs``, or ``Chinese settings``. Based on the analysis, the researcher concludes thar Korean proverbs possess common characteristics which ordinary maxims share, while implicitly show their peculiarity.