Meaning: Knowing means knowing, not knowing means not knowing. This is true wisdom.

Source: "The Analects of Confucius·Wei Zheng"

Original text: Confucius said: "Yu, I will teach you what you know! Knowing what is known is knowing, not knowing is not knowing, which is knowing."?

The meaning of the whole sentence is: Zilu, tell me your attitude towards knowing and not knowing (that is, your attitude towards learning)! Knowing means knowing, and not knowing means not knowing. This is true wisdom.

Extended information

This is a widely circulated famous saying of Confucius. Later generations will be used to remind people to treat knowledge or other issues with an honest attitude, without any hypocrisy or pride. It is necessary to develop a down-to-earth and serious learning attitude, a pragmatic style, and avoid the tendency of recklessness and vanity.

No matter how rich a person’s knowledge or skills are, there is always something he does not understand. Then, we should have a realistic attitude. Only in this way can we learn more knowledge.

Confucius advocated that "what you know is known, and what you don't know is unknown" and adopt an attitude of ignoring things you don't know. Of course, people below average intelligence cannot know everything. Except for things involving gods, monsters, and ghosts, admitting that you know something and something you don’t know is an honest attitude and the smartest attitude. Only if you "don't know" something can you "know something".

Lü Duan, a minister of the Song Dynasty, was said by Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty to be "confused about small matters but not confused about big matters." This was a good example of abandoning "little wisdom" for "great wisdom." In the "Book of Han", Zhang Shizhi's defense of Shang Linwei was based on this point, which was understood by Emperor Han Wen.