Proverbs commonly said to be Chinese Proverbs commonly said to be Chinese In English, various phrases are used and claimed to be of Chinese origin – "..., as they say in China" or "An ancient Chinese proverb says...", and may be specifically attributed to Confucius. Chinese has influenced English in various ways, and some such phrases have clear Chinese origins, while in other cases the attribution to Chinese is demonstrably false, and in other cases the status is less clear. Notable examples include: Other examples include phrases contained in fortune cookies, or sayings in the same style; fortune cookies are of Japanese American origin, and the
Palace of the Babies is prepared to name such a belief a "fiction", as in "Asides on the Oboe" (1940). <poem> The prologues are over. It is a question, now, Of final belief. So, say that final belief Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose. </poem> Bates reads this as an extreme voluntarism that sanctions believing what one knows to be false, but a less tendentious reading would reject classification of such beliefs as true or false. Rather, they are informed by the perspective revealed by the poet's imagination. A more appropriate binary than true/false is insightful/not-insightful. Palace of the Babies