Custom "Learning" Chinese & Japanese Calligraphy Wall Scroll

This Chinese philosophy tells of how we continue to learn throughout our lives. It can be translated in a few ways such as "Study Has No End" or "Knowledge is Infinite".

The deeper meaning: Even when we finish school we are still students of the world gaining more knowledge from our surroundings with each passing day.

See Also...  An Open Book Benefits Your Mind | Wisdom | Learn From Wisdom

When you meet a wise person, you should learn from them and be inspired to become as wise as they are.

This is a pretty long phrase in English, but in Chinese it's only four characters.
However, in Chinese the deeper meaning often surpass the dictionary definition of each character.

In this case, you should seek wise people to learn from throughout your life...
Always try to learn enough to become equal to them. It also suggests that the process of learning and seeking wisdom is a non-ending cycle.

See Also...  Knowledge

This is a Japanese phrase that means, "coming up with new ideas based on things learned in the past". It can also be defined as, "developing new ideas based on study of the past" or simply, "learning from the past".

Characters shown
above are read
vertically, starting
from the right

This is a lifelong suggestion for expanding your horizons by gaining knowledge, experience, and seeing the world.

Of course, this was written long ago when it was hard to travel 10,000 miles.
With air travel and the business I'm in, I often achieve that lifetime goal on a monthly basis.
However, I am a little behind in the book count.

Note: An ancient Chinese mile (lǐ) referred to in this phrase is a bit shorter than a British/American mile.

This is a famous phrase by Chairman Mao Zedong that sounds really strange when directly translated into English. I include it in our database of phrases to illustrate how different the construction and grammar can be between Chinese and English. The direct translation is "Good Good Study, Day Day Up". In Chinese, a repeated character/word can often serve to reinforce the idea (like saying "very" or suggesting "a lot of"). So "good good" really means "a lot of good". While "day day" can be better translated as "day in day out". The idea of "up" has a meaning in China of "rising above" or "improving".

After understanding all of this, we come up with a slightly better translation of "With lot of good study, day in day out, we raise above".

The more natural translation of this phrase would be something like, "study hard, and keep improving".

The first character represents "to know" or "to realize". The second character alone refers to the ability to "recognize", or "realize" and can also be used to mean "knowing". Combined, these two characters have the very strong meaning of "knowledge" and in some context, "learning".

See Also...  Wisdom | Learn From Wisdom

The first character means, "wise" or "smart" and the second character means "intelligence".

I have also seen these two characters translated together as knowledge, sagacity, sense, and intelligence.

Note: This word is used commonly in Chinese and is a less-common word in Japanese and Korean. If your audience is Japanese, I suggest our other Japanese wisdom option.

This means intellect or wisdom in Japanese too, but is a more unusual way to write this word (though both versions are pronounced the same in Japanese).

See Also...  Learn From Wisdom

Characters shown
above are read
vertically, starting
from the right

It's been said that wisdom comes from good judgment, and good judgment comes from experience, while experience comes from a series of times when you used bad judgment.

This Chinese proverb makes the simplest connection between experience and wisdom.

See Also...  Failure Is The Mother Of Success | Wisdom | Learn From Wisdom

This is the simplest way to write wisdom in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Being a single character, the meaning is open to interpretation, and can also mean intellect or reason.

This character is also one of the five tenets of Confucius.

This character is sometimes included in the Bushido code, but usually not considered part of the seven key concepts of the code.

See Also...  Wisdom | Learn From Wisdom | Confucius

This single character can be translated as wisdom, but it has more of an "intelligent" flavor. This can also mean cleverness or wit.

Japanese note: This is understood in Japanese, but seldom seen as a lone Kanji.

See Also...  Knowledge | Read