New Delhi, May 8 -- 'Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance'.

This wording is a popular paraphrase of a teaching commonly linked to The Analects 2.17: "To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge." The broader meaning is firmly Confucian, but the exact modern wording should be treated as a paraphrase rather than a strict classical translation.

Confucius, born Kong Qiu in 551 BCE in the state of Lu, in present-day Shandong, China, became one of East Asia's most influential teachers, philosophers, and political thinkers. He lived during the Spring and Autumn period, a time of political fragmentation, and built his teachings around ethics, education, ritual, family responsibility, and moral leade...