“To know and not to do is not to know”

“To know and not to do is not to know” has been credited to Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529). The phrase appears cited with frequency in English from 1977, and has been a Wall Street proverb since the 1980s. Consumer activist Raph Nader often used the phrase, calling it an “anicient Chinese saying.”
 
   
Wikipedia: Wang Yangming
Wang Yangming (王陽明, 1472–1529) was a Ming Chinese idealist Neo-Confucian philosopher, official, educationist, calligraphist and general. After Zhu Xi, he is commonly regarded as the most important Neo-Confucian thinker, with interpretations of Confucianism that denied the rationalist dualism of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi. He was known as Yangming Xiansheng or Yangming Zi (both mean “Brilliant Master Yangming”) in literary circles.
     
Google Books
Lessons on the Church catechism:
For the use of Sunday school teachers and other religious instructors

By Alexander Cluny MacPherson
London : Church of England Sunday School Institute
1874
Pg. 3:
To know and not to do is like building house upon sand (Matt. vii. 24 — 27).
 
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The wall: and The gates, and other sermons
By Jonathan Ritchie Smith
Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press
1919
Pg. 119:
To know and not to do is of all sins the most grievous, for it is the sin against light.
   
Google Books
Secrets to Inner Beauty
By Joseph C. Aldrich
Santa Ana, CA: Vision House Publishers
1977
Pg. 129:
To know and not to do is not to know at all.
     
Google Books
Extraordinary living for ordinary people
By Dan Baumann
Irvine, CA: Harvest House Publishers
1978
Pg. 20:
To know and not to do is not to know at all.
   
Google Books
The Strangers All Are Gone:
The Memoirs of Anthony Powell

Volume 4
By Anthony Powell
New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1983, ©1982
Pg. 127:
He was a relatively close friend of Yukio Mishima, novelist and poet, whose belief that ‘to know and not to do is not to know’ was to make him so striking an exemplar of that Japanese nostalgia for heroic failure, a subject about which Morris himself wrote.
 
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Creating Wealth
By Robert G. Allen
New York, NY: Simon and Schuster
1983
Pg. 293:
To know and not to do is not yet to know. — ZEN SAYING
     
Google Books
Esquire’s the soul of America
By Lee Eisenberg
New York, NY: Scribner
1986, ©1985
Pg. 38:
A phrase often heard on The Street (Wall Street—ed.) is, “To know and not to do is not to know.”
   
Google Books
Sleep-tight money:
A guide to managing your money safely and achieving financial peace of mind

By Lawrence A Krause
New York, NY: Simon and Schuster
1987
Pg. 54:
As usual, however, “to know and not to do, is not to know.”
   
Google Books
Mental Fitness:
Basic workouts for mind, body, and soul

By Michiko J Rolek
New York, NY: Weatherhill
1996
Pg. 11:
As Leo Buscaglia says, “To know, and not to do, is really not to know.”
   
Corporate Predators by Mokhiber & Weissman
Introduction by Ralph Nader
(...)
But readers of Common Courage Press published books tend towards citizen activism. They want to know because they want to do. Some may even agree with the ancient Chinese saying that “To know and not to do is not to know.”
(...)
Ralph Nader, 1999
   
Google Books
Managing Stress In Emergency Medical Services
By Brian Luke Seaward
Jones & Bartlett Publishers
2000
Pg. 39:
“To know and not to do, is not to know.”
Wall Street Slogan
 
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Getting Control:
Overcoming your obsessions and compulsions

By Lee Baer
New York, NY: Plume
2000
Pg. 141:
The Japanese have a saying about this: “To know and not to do is not to know.”
   
Google Books
The 8th habit:
From effectiveness to greatness

By Stephen R. Covey
New York, NY: Simon & Schuster
2004
Pg. 33:
To know and not to do is not to know.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
‘To Know and not to do is not to Know’: Heidegger’s Rectoral Address
Author: Andrea; Philosophy Centre for Advanced Studies University of Port Elizabeth P O Box 1600 Port Elizabeth 6000 South Africa; andreahurst@icon co za Hurst
Publisher: 2005 South African Journal of Philosophy Association of Crop Science, Uganda
Edition/Format: Internet resource : English
Database: OAIster
   
Tom Asacker
Wall Street saying on knowing
Posted October 27, 2005
“To know and not to do is not to know.”
 
Google Books
A Handmade Life:
In search of simplicity

By William S Coperthwaite and Peter Forbes
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green
2007. 2002
Pg. 67:
To know and not to do is not to know. —Wang Yang Ming
     
The Nader Page
Monday, May 19. 2008
“To know and not to do is not to know.”
   
The BlogPaiges
Friday, March 26, 2010
To Know and not To Do is not to Know…
by: Thinking deeply is always well regarded |
This is a tricky bit of wisdom.  Tricky in that most of us know what should/needs to be done, yet it doesn’t occur.  So the saying goes we are responsible and even more accountable having had knowledge to do things differently but simply making the wrong choice.  Because isn’t that what life’s all about?