CHINESE ORIGINAL
知不知上，不知知病。
夫唯病病，是以不病。
圣人不病，以其病病，是以不病。
ENGLISH · JAMES LEGGE, 1891
To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.
It is simply by being pained at (the thought of) having this disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease. He knows the pain that would be inseparable from it, and therefore he does not have it.
Legge’s translation uses nineteenth-century English. Parentheses are the translator’s; English chapter headings are editorial reading aids. Sources & method ↗
READ IN CONTEXT
Self-cultivation
Begin with the way you attend to your own life: quietness, humility, honesty, and the patient work of knowing yourself.
Self-cultivation