溫wēn故gù而ér知zhī新xīn

What does 溫故而知新 (wēn gù ér zhī xīn) mean?

溫故而知新 (wēn gù ér zhī xīn) is a four-character classical idiom (chéngyǔ 成語). Word for word it reads "warming the old to understand the new." In use it means: Revisiting old knowledge with fresh eyes reveals new understanding; the past is not dead but alive with lessons. You reach for it when you want that idea in one breath, and the Water note it carries is why we hand it to those born in the Year of the Monkey.

Literally: "warming the old to understand the new."

The reading

The text you read at twenty will tell you something different when you read it at forty. Not because the text changed-because you did. The old knowledge holds the new insight in waiting, patient, until you have grown enough to receive it.

What kind of proverb it is

• Typechéngyǔ 成語
• FocusPresent-minded
• Element水 Water
• Zodiac tie猴 Year of the Monkey

Source Analects 論語, Book 2 (Wei Zheng 為政, ch. 11)

Sits beside

Keep reading

Return to the Proverb Pond to draw another of the eighty-seven, or hear one read aloud. Read the rest of its chapter in Wisdom & Learning, or follow the years these lines belong to: Year of the Monkey, Year of the Frog, and Year of the Rat.