“Do not anticipate deceit or presume distrust; yet is one not worthy if one detects them early?” The sentence comes from Xian Wen in The Analects. Here, ni means to conjecture in advance, while yi means to suppose. Confucius is not praising defenceless innocence. Wisdom lies in refusing to classify others as deceitful or untrustworthy beforehand while still recognising evidence when it appears.
Trust and alertness need not be opposites. A collaboration can begin without assuming malice while retaining verification, records and boundaries. What should be avoided is letting untested suspicion convict a person before the facts do.
https://ctext.org/analects/xian-wen/zh
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