Chinese idioms from the Dao De Jing
不出户，知天下 (bù chū hù, zhī tiān xià)
Word for word from chapter 47
不出户，知天下, “without going out of the door, one knows the world”, opens chapter 47 of the Dao De Jing and means that one can understand the world without traveling far.
Character by character
| 不 | bù | not |
|---|---|---|
| 出 | chū | to come out, emerge |
| 户 | hù | door |
| 知 | zhī | to know |
| 天下 | tiān xià | all under heaven, the world |
| 不出户，知天下 | One can know the world without leaving home. | |
Where it comes from
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不出户，知天下；
Without going out of the door, one knows the world;
-
不窥牖，见天道。
without looking out of the window, one sees the Way of heaven.
How the meaning moved
Chapter 47 opens with two matching lines: “Without going out of the door, one knows the world; without looking out of the window, one sees the Way of heaven.” Then it turns the usual idea of learning around: “The farther one goes, the less one knows. So the sage knows without going, names without seeing, and achieves without acting.”
In the chapter, the knowing is not news of distant places. It is knowing how things go, the Way of heaven, which is the same everywhere and is not found by running after it. Today the line is mostly used in a plainer sense: staying at home and still knowing what goes on in the world, through books, newspapers or the internet. A popular proverb says much the same: “a scholar does not go out of his door, yet knows the affairs of the world” (秀才不出门，能知天下事).
Using it today
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有了互联网，不出户，知天下，已经不是什么难事。
yǒu le hù lián wǎng, bù chū hù, zhī tiān xià, yǐ jīng bù shì shén me nán shì.
With the internet, knowing the world without going out of the door is no longer hard at all.
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爷爷每天读书看报，不出户，知天下，聊起国际新闻头头是道。
yé ye měi tiān dú shū kàn bào, bù chū hù, zhī tiān xià, liáo qǐ guó jì xīn wén tóu tóu shì dào.
Grandpa reads books and papers every day: he knows the world without going out of the door, and talks about international news like an expert.