"If you don't know anything, you will be thirsty for knowledge" means that when you don't know something, you should regard it as a shame and turn it into the motivation to learn new knowledge.

Source: Tao Hongjing's "Southern History, Hermit Biography, Tao Hongjing": "It is a shame to read more than 10,000 volumes and know nothing."

After reading as many as 10 thousand volumes, there is one thing I don't know or understand, and I am deeply ashamed.

This sentence is about Tao Hongjing's serious attitude towards reading and studying. He studies hard, asks for advice modestly, and learns all kinds of knowledge. The ancients said that "it is wise to smell it, and then be brave to know shame", and turn shame into motivation. This spirit of respecting knowledge and actively learning should be possessed by every knowledge seeker.

Extended data

For ancient scholars, "shame on ignorance" is not only a slogan, a banner, but also a guide and an incentive. Xu Guangqi, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, was familiar with Matteo Ricci, so he proposed to Matteo Ricci to cooperate in translating the book, because "Geometry has not been translated originally, so all his books can't be discussed". Matteo Ricci advised him to shelve the matter because the book is difficult to translate.

Xu Guangqi replied, "I have something to say first. I don't know anything. It is the shame of Confucianism. " Resolutely "I take refuge, it is difficult to grow; I faced difficulties, overcame them and succeeded, so I began to translate this book.

Yan Ruoqu, a North Korean scholar, was weak and sickly in his childhood, with dull qualifications and stuttering. He has studied it thousands of times, but he often can't understand the general idea of this book. But he was determined to read widely, and once thought that "knowing nothing" was a shame; Being asked, it is rare to have a peaceful day "column, in order to spur yourself to study hard and not be lazy."

A drop of water wears away the stone, I think since the enlightenment. Finally, on a winter night at the age of 65,438+05, he meditated for a long time because he was "frustrated in his studies and refused to sleep". "His heart suddenly opened up and his understanding was abnormal." He inherited the learning style of beginners in Qing Dynasty. As long as he doesn't analyze his mind, he will "think again and again", and even "hunger, thirst, cold, clothing and heat will be solved before he stops".

Every theory and every statement should be comprehensive and accurate. "General things must be rooted, words must be based on evidence, mutual testimony, and many things must be related." With more than 20 pieces of evidence/kloc-0, his book Annotations on Ancient Books of Shangshu judged Kong Anguo's ancient prose Shangshu as a fake book, which "dispelled the great doubts of the ages" and became a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation.