FakeNot in the source High
Checked by the editor · 8 Oct 2026

Attributed to Sun Tzu

If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.

No. It is not in The Art of War or the Analects, and no Chinese source line has been identified.

Source line

No matching passage.

Origin unknown. Not in The Art of War or the Analects; no Chinese source line has been identified.

Explanation

No. "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by" is not in The Art of War, and it is not in the Analects. The confidence of that absence is high. The line travels under three labels at once — Sun Tzu, Confucius, and a Japanese proverb — which is already a warning. No Chinese source line has been identified. Who first said it is unknown, and on that narrower question the confidence is only medium. Absence from the two classical books is the part that is firm.

No Chinese source line has been identified for the river, the waiting, or the bodies. The thirteen chapters do not contain the sentence, and the Analects do not contain it either. Until a real first printing turns up, the origin stays unknown, which is why that narrower question is only medium confidence. Sun Tzu, Confucius, and a Japanese proverb are labels people have tried, not sources. Do not print any of those names under the sentence as if the book had been found.

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References

Confidence: high. An exact passage is in the cited edition, or a named source documents the origin. How confidence works

In the canon

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