知人者智,自知者明

Mandarin · pinyin zhī rén zhě zhì , zì zhī zhě míng

Meanings

  1. those who understand others are intelligent, but those who know themselves are truly wise (idiom, from Laozi's 道德經 Dào dé jīng)
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

知
zhī · know, perceive, comprehend
人
rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
者
zhě · that which; he who; those who
智
zhì · wisdom, knowledge, intelligence
自
zì · self, private, personal; from; Kangxi radical 132
明
míng · bright, light, brilliant; clear
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Connected dictionary

6character links1source reference
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

知人者智,自知者明 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

知人者智,自知者明 · zhi1 ren2 zhe3 zhi4 , zi4 zhi1 zhe3 ming2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 79,001
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record知人者智,自知者明 知人者智,自知者明 [zhi1 ren2 zhe3 zhi4 , zi4 zhi1 zhe3 ming2] /those who understand others are intelligent, but those who know themselves are truly wise (idiom, from Laozi's 道德經|道德经[Dao4 de2 jing1])/