Chapter 71 — Knowing sickness知病
1To know and say you do not know is best
知不知上，不知知病。
To know and to say you do not know is best. Not to know and to say you know is a sickness.
note 3
不知知之不足任則病也。
Not to know that one's knowing is not enough to be entrusted with — that is the sickness.
知道言不知，是乃德之上。
He knows the Dao, and yet he says he does not know; this is the very highest of virtue.
不知道言知，是乃德之病。
He does not know the Dao, and yet he says he knows; this is the very sickness of virtue.
2Treating sickness as sickness he is not sick
夫唯病病，是以不病。聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病。
It is just by treating sickness as sickness that one is not sick. The sage is not sick because he treats sickness as sickness, and so he is not sick.
note 3
夫唯能病苦眾人有強知之病，是以不自病也。
It is only because he can be pained that the many suffer the sickness of forcing a claim to know that he is not himself sick.
聖人無此強知之病者，以其常苦眾人有此病。
The sage is free of this sickness of forcing a claim to know because he is always pained that the many suffer it.
以比非人，故不自病。夫聖人懷通達之知，託於不知者，欲使天下質樸忠正，各守純性。小人不知道意，而妄行強知之事以自顯著，內傷精神，減壽消年也。
Measuring himself against this, he does not do as others do, and so he is not himself sick. The sage holds a knowledge that sees clearly through everything, and yet entrusts himself to not knowing, for he would have all under heaven be plain, loyal and upright, each keeping its own pure nature. The small man does not know the meaning of the Dao, and recklessly goes about forcing a claim to know so as to show himself off; within, he wounds his spirit and cuts his life short.