according to *many web sources (undoutedly all cribbing from one another), this was coined by a marketing guy named Barnard, for the purpose of selling tram ads. he first ascribed it to a Japanese philosopher and later changed it to Chinese. ::yet another myth debunked?::

http://fas.sfu.ca/pub/cs/dhepting/personal/research/words/history.html
http://www.aslib.co.uk/notes/1999/may/articles/01.html