People today distinguish between knowledge and action and pursue them separately, believing that one must know before he can act... . They say [they will wait] till they truly know before putting their knowledge into practice. Consequently to the end of their lives, they will never act and also will never know.

Wang Yang Ming (1472 CE-1529 CE), Wang Yangming was a Chinese philosopher, general, politician, writer, and calligrapher during the Ming dynasty. After Zhu Xi, he is commonly regarded as the most important Neo-Confucian thinker, for his interpretations of Confucianism that denied the rationalist dualism of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi.