Even the Best Way Cannot Be Known Without Learning

“Even if there is a perfect way, without learning it one does not know its goodness.” The sentence comes from the Xue Ji, or Record of Learning, in the Liji. The text first says that an excellent dish cannot be appreciated without being tasted, then uses the comparison to explain why a sound principle cannot be understood without study.

The next line says that learning reveals what we lack, while teaching reveals where we are constrained. “Learning” here is more than hearing a statement and agreeing with it. The principle must pass through understanding, practice and examination; that process is precisely what exposes the learner’s limits. Today, the sentence helps distinguish knowing that an idea exists from having genuinely grasped it. Saving and repeating a claim are easy. Explaining it, applying it and discovering one’s remaining questions come closer to learning.

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/禮記/學記