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Tao Te Ching · 71 of 81
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.
Asked of Guide
Why does Lao Tzu call confident ignorance a 'disease' and the sage 'preserved' from it?
Lao Tzu says claiming knowledge when one lacks it is a disease because it brings unavoidable pain; the sage senses that pain in advance and avoids the posture that causes it. He practices humility about knowing — “To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment)” — so he never wagers his integrity on false certainty.
The chapter treats awareness of one’s ignorance as a protective clarity: feeling the potential pain keeps one from pretending to know. This overlaps with Chuang Tzu, who warns that ignoring what one should fear invites harm, and with the Enneads on how dread undermines virtue.
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