Wild and whacky world inhabited by Chinese characters

It's often said that you have mastered a language when you know its proverbs and can use them properly in a conversation or in writing. I for one, though, don't like to quote proverbs or hear others quoting them.

Who has not heard hundreds of time that "in heaven there is the paradise, on Earth there is Hangzhou", or Confucius' "what a pleasure to have friends coming from afar!" or, talking about the good of diversity, Bai hua qi fang; bai jia zheng ming (All the flowers are blossoming; different schools teach different lessons).

I have never paid much attention to studying proverbs in the five languages I can speak, so in some people's eyes I haven't even mastered my mother tongue!