Reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles is Dong Qichang’s famous saying.

Read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles (Pinyin: dú wàn juàn shū, xínɡ wàn lǐ lù) from Dong Qichang's "Essays on Painting a Zen Room - Volume 2". In ancient times, Wanjuan refers to the emperor's examination papers. I studied in order to go to Beijing to take the exam and get the title on the gold medal list.

This is a metaphor for studying hard to make your talents outstanding and let the knowledge you have learned be reflected in life. At the same time, you can increase your knowledge, combine theory with practice, and apply what you have learned. The words come out of the Ming Dynasty: Dong Qichang's "Painting Purpose" and Du Fu's "Twenty-two Rhymes Presented to Wei Zuocheng".

Wanjuanshu originally refers to: the emperor's test papers, and reading Wanjuanshu means: studying in order to go to Beijing to take the exam and get the title on the gold list. Traveling thousands of miles means: Entering the official career and serving the emperor. The current explanation is: Reading Ten Thousand Volumes of Books: It means to study hard and let your talents know others. Traveling thousands of miles: means to let what you have learned be reflected in your life, and at the same time increase your knowledge, that is, combine theory with practice and apply what you have learned.

For example, if we say that reading thousands of books is to get a spot on the gold medal list, then traveling thousands of miles is to show our ambitions and apply what we have learned. Therefore, reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles has become the credo of students.

The meaning of reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles:

Traveling is understood as learning in practice. Human evolution begins with walking. From the trees to the ground, the first thing to learn is to walk. The purpose of walking is to get more food and find a safe place to rest. It also broadens our horizons and learns a lot of useful knowledge. Dayu realized the flood control principle of "it is better to dredge and not to block" while following his father's control of floods.

Confucius attached great importance to the role of practice in learning, and confirmed what he learned by traveling around the world to govern the country. Li Shizhen, Xu Xiake, Marco Polo, Darwin, and Columbus all wrote magnificent works or made major discoveries by "traveling". It can be seen that "traveling thousands of miles" is much more important than "reading thousands of books".

Use an analogy to the relationship between "reading" and "traveling": "Reading thousands of books" is like seeing the golden mountain of knowledge and ability through a window. But if you want to truly get the golden mountain of knowledge and ability, It also depends on getting out of the door and “traveling thousands of miles”.