“Confucius says” usually begins a fortune-cookie message or a proverb. That shouldn’t surprise us, because proverbs are found in many lands and cultures. The Old Testament even has a whole book of ...

You know more of the Bible than you think you do, I often remark to my students. Phrases such as “As a dog returns to its own vomit” or “spare the rod and spoil the child” are well-known in English as ...