Chapter LXXI
(Chapter 71)

Ko Yuen Translation

The Distemper of Knowledge

To know, yet to know nothing, is the highest; not to know, yet to pretend to knowledge, is a distemper.

Painful is this distemper; therefore we shun it. The wise man hath it not. Knowing it to be bound up with Sorrow, he putteth it away from him.

S. Mitchell Translation

Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move toward health.

The Master is her own physician.
She has healed herself of all knowing.
Thus she is truly whole.

James Legge Translation
1.	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.
2.	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.

GNL not Lao Interpolation

Limitation

Who recognizes his limitations is healthy;
Who ignores his limitations is sick.
The sage recognizes this sickness as a limitation.
And so becomes immune.

Tao Teh King
Main Page