Classical Chinese texts supplied the **stories, images, and aphorisms** that later crystallized into four-character **chengyu (成语)**. Understanding these sources clarifies meanings, registers, and proper usage.
Confucian classics such as the *Analects (Lúnyǔ)*, *Mencius (Mèngzǐ)*, and the *Book of Rites (Lǐjì)* generated many four-character expressions. These chengyu encode study habits, moral cultivation, social order, and ritual propriety.
Daoist works—especially the *Dao De Jing* and *Zhuangzi* (with later Daoist-influenced texts like *Liezi* and *Huainanzi*)—supply rich images that crystallized into four-character chengyu. These idioms foreground naturalness, perspective, flexibility, and humility.
Grand histories like **Shǐjì** (《史记》), **Hànshū** (《汉书》), and **Zìzhì Tōngjiàn** (《资治通鉴》) supplied dramatic episodes that later crystallized into compact chengyu. These idioms often encode strategy, leadership, politics, and moral caution.
Chinese **poetry and literature**—from the *Book of Songs* to Tang–Song verse, rhapsodies (*fu*), essays, and literati painting theory—shape how many **chengyu (成语)** sound, look, and mean. Literary style (parallelism, imagery, rhythm) helped fix the four-character mold and supplied images that became compact idioms.