Q0165

Zhuangzi

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous!
Thinker Zhuangzi
School Daoism
Source Zhuangzi, The Primacy of Nourishing Life
Theme Limits
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Zhuangzi, The Primacy of Nourishing Life, within the tradition of Daoism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of limits, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Zhuangzi's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Zhuangzi. (n.d.). My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous! In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0165

MLA: Zhuangzi. “My life has a limit, but knowledge has….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0165.

Chicago: Zhuangzi. “My life has a limit, but knowledge has….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0165.

Same thinker

More from Zhuangzi

  1. Therefore it is said: The consummate person has no self; the spiritual person has no merit; the sage has no name.
  2. When the springs dry up and fish are stranded together on land, they moisten one another with dampness and wet one another with foam — but better to forget one another in the rivers and lakes.
  3. Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly…He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou.
  4. Relying on the heavenly pattern, I strike into the large gaps, guide through the large openings, and follow what is inherently so.
  5. Better to forget one another in the rivers and lakes than to moisten one another with foam when stranded.

All quotations by Zhuangzi

Same theme

More on limits

  1. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs.
  2. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
  3. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
  4. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
  5. It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.

Browse the limits theme