Given the recurring problems Spain has been having with variable gravity, it’s possible your enemy’s corpse will float by in, say, Barcelona without any help at all.
Yes - I would take that to mean something along the lines of “Let time take revenge on your enemies for you, while you live your own life instead”
:smack:…commonly miss-quoted as being Japanese or of Confucius (Chinese but much later, supporters of whom repeatedly attempted to discredit Sun Tzu’s very existence as the use of deceptions & spies was contrary to the philosophy around Confucius teachings in origin but the quote is in fact from “Sun Tzu - The Art of War”.
:rolleyes:
The reason it is often miss-appropriated is that its origins date back to the 6th century B.C. but as much of the eastern wisdoms of that age were passed from teacher to student, father to son by the aural tradition (Chinese whispers, LoL) so many variations of the original can be attained & hence so many quite different interpretations as to its meaning.
:dubious:
Over the years many variations of the Chinese original have arisen but as far as I’m aware there are no other references to any other similar variations of the quote;
“If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by”, as any earlier than around 512 B.C.
:eek:
As for its entry into our modern lives, we can blame the script writer of the 1993 film “Rising Sun” starring Sean Connery who quotes (wrongly) it as being Japanese.
:smack::o
Bearing in mind that the wisdom behind the Art of War has in effect been embedded in the everyday culture of the ordinary Chinese people for approximately 2500 years, a legacy if it were compared to a more modern more western/middle eastern text it would be like attributing the New Testament to the Profit Muhammad or the Torah to Buddha.
:eek:
As is obvious in these two examples I give, until a wisdom is recorded in a more permanent fashion & with the absence of literacy for the the worlds general population, most wisdoms have had one main method of delivery, the aural tradition.
The written versions of Sun Tzu’s Art of War (13 Chapters) are in fact written on bamboo, the earliest western translation was into French circa 1772 & not fully into English until between 1905 & 1910, started by a British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop, then both finished and published by Lionel Giles.
:rolleyes:
World leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap, General Douglas MacArthur and leaders of Imperial Japan have drawn inspiration from the work & in more modern times the Art of War has been adapted in the training of modern business leaders as a philosophical approach to business.
As has already been noted, this phrase doesn’t appear in “The Art of War”. :smack:
Why did you bother posting a long explanation that you could have established was wrong with 2 minutes on Google?
That sort of thing makes baby Jesus sad. 
And it makes me angry. :mad:
And it makes Cecil go: :dubious:
And it should make you embarrassed. :o
If enough people sit by the river for long enough, something new to somebody will float by. (Coincidence? I think not.)
Actually I have researched the subject matter in a lot of detail, confirmed by Google amongst others as I wanted to ensure accuracy, specifically dates & names.
If you read my post thoroughly I explain how the phrase has passed down through 2500 years of aural tradition. Like the New Testament, it was not put together as one book in one go & followers of Confucous philosophy, much later on attempted to remove much of Sun Tzu’s work. Not all of which has survived in its physical written form & with the aural tradition origins can be easily misplaced, the point is the book “The Art Of War” was not even in existence in its complete form during Sun Tzu’s lifetime. Teachings were written on bamboo. I have provided my sources, evidence & opinions. All you have done is disagree, provided no alternative explanation as to the source of the quote & you have not presented a forum worthy debatable point.
Perhaps you should refine your Google search, starting with looking up Sun Tzu, the original Chinese major contributor to what we now know as “The Art of War”.
The modern translation is not my point, the quote was from Sun Tzu’s original works.
Type the quote in to Google & you will see…
No, you haven’t. You’ve rambled on incoherently and when questioned responded with “google it”.
So let’s try again. What is your most reliable source for this idea that this is an actual quote from a more authentic Sun Tzu?
Then you should be able to provide the name of a source where this was printed prior to 1995. :rolleyes:
If you can’t do that, then you have no reason whatsoever to believe that it *was *ever printed prior to 1995.
Can you do this simple thing? 
Funny, it doesn’t sound Tsuish.
If we wait long enough, a properly-referenced citation may just pass in front of us.
It’s cited in the 1983 postscript to the novel *The Name Of The Rose.
*
I’ll guess we have to look to Italian texts to see any earlier origin, or maybe Umberto Eco made it up.
Eco could easily have picked it up from a non-Italian source. The dude is insanely well-read.
Of note: He calls it an “Indian proverb.”
Which brings us right back to “dot or feather ?”. We’ve gone recursive !
hey,i am a chinese ,and i know this
Confucius （BC551-BC479）is stand on a hill,he is watching the river down the mountain.
then he GET emotion
SAY: the time (universal) LIKE this river ,you cant chase past
so,you got to observer everything in every moment,if you want gets inspiration。
it sound like"shi zhe ru si fu"in chinese
but it changed in japanese ,japanese means:you wait ,they fucked
and it is not from japanese fairy tale ,not from Art of War by Sun Tzu
yes ,sun tzu always use strategy with patiently
I’ve been sitting by this damned river for almost an hour already, and I still haven’t seen my enemy float by. What a waste of time!
I think I’d rather wait for the roast duck.
(Does anyone else find it really unsettling to see your own posts in zombies and have no initial memory of posting them?)
The “proverb” is used in Jame Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun. In it on page 622 (of my pdf) Buntaro says, “It’s only a matter of waiting beside a river long enough for the bodies of your enemies to float by…”.
The entire paragraph is:
The vein on Buntaro’s forehead was throbbing and he was talking almost to himself. “They’ll pay. All of them. The traitors. It’s only a matter of waiting beside a river long enough for the bodies of your enemies to float by, neh? I’ll wait and I’ll spit on their heads soon, very soon. I’ve promised myself that.” He looked at her. “I hate traitors and adulterers. And all liars!”“Death to all fanatics!” - my college roommate Andrew, c. 1983
I hope Keynes wasn’t a big fat guy.
If you sit by the river long enough, you will realize you have been sitting by the river too long.
If you sit by a long enough river…no, wait.
You cannot sit by the same river twice…aw, forget it.