Another "Chinese proverb"

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:56 AM +0100 12/11/10, Paul Frank wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:23 -0500, "Jonathan Lighter"
><wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>>  1973 Erich Fromm _The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness_ (N.Y.: Holt) 28:
>>  As
>>  a Chinese sage said, "Reading prescriptions does not make one well."
>>
>>  That's the earliest I can find.
>>
>>  JL
>
>I think I missed the beginning of this thread. Was there a question
>about where this saying comes from? This is the only example of this
>quotation I can find in Google Books. Erich Fromm repeats a German
>version of this, "Ärztliche Verordnungen zu lesen, macht niemand
>gesund," in Aggressionstheorie, 1980, p. 27. Eckart Wiesenhütter
>translated Fromm's English version from 1973 as "Ärztliche Verordnungen
>zu lesen, macht niemanden gesund" in his Die Begegnung zwischen
>Philosophie und Tiefenpsychologie, 1979, p. 73.

Speaking of proverbs, I like the Russian ones:

Europeans Criticize Fierce U.S. Response to Leaks
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/world/europe/10wikileaks-react.html

[...]Mr. Putin then referred to a Russian proverb
that roughly translates as "the pot calling the
kettle black."

"You know, out in the countryside, we have a
saying, 'Someone else's cow may moo, but yours
should keep quiet,' " Mr. Putin said. "So I would
like to shoot that puck right back at our
American colleagues."

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