大智若愚

Pronunciation: dà zhì ruò yú Literal meaning: Great wisdom appears foolish

Origin & Usage

Su Shi wrote it in a formal note to Ouyang Xiu on his retirement: great courage looks like timidity, great wisdom (大智) looks like (若) foolishness (愚). The root is older and Daoist — the Daodejing has great skill appearing clumsy — and the observation in all versions is that genuine capacity has no need to signal itself, so it tends to be quiet and gets underestimated. Two senses are worth keeping apart: real praise for somebody whose depth is not obvious, and a face-saving compliment to somebody who has just done something that looked slow and turned out to be right.

Examples

English: "His seemingly naive approach often led to the most effective solutions."

Chinese: 他看似天真的方法常常导致最有效的解决方案。