Plucked directly from Gerd de Ley’s Book of Chinese Proverbs: A Collection of Timeless Wisdom, Wit, Sayings & Advice, these 50 proverbs really strike a chord and are worth keeping in your back pocket.

Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara, guides readers through the mythical land of “Proverbia,” where bits of received wisdom are both ...