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Who really said it

The only bad question is an unasked one

Not Confucius — a modern classroom saying Unknown Modern, anonymous · the family of sayings dated to 1970 and after
Disputed Free to reuse

It is not in the Analects, and there is no Chinese text for it — the decisive test, since the Analects is short, complete and fully concordanced in the original. What it belongs to is the modern ‘there is no such thing as a stupid question’ family, whose earliest dated instance anyone has produced is a Dear Abby column of 3 December 1970. Confucius does have a great deal to say about asking questions — it is one of his real preoccupations — but he never says this, and what he does say is sharper.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“The only bad question is an unasked one” A modern classroom saying of unknown authorship. Not Confucius, and not in the Analects — though he does defend asking, at Analects III.15.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Confucius. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Confucius — Chinese teacher and philosopher (here, the misattributed figure). Theme: "The only bad question is an unasked one". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The only bad question is an unasked one". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Claimed work
The Analects of Confucius
Chinese original
None — nothing corresponds
Genuine parallel
Analects III.15 and V.15
Modern family
Dated to 1970 at the earliest

子入大廟，每事問。或曰：「孰謂鄹人之子知禮乎？入大廟，每事問。」子聞之曰：「是禮也。」 Analects, Book III, chapter 15

The genuine passage, in Chinese. Legge’s English: ‘The Master, when he entered the grand temple, asked about everything. Some one said, “Who say that the son of the man of Zou knows the rules of propriety! He has entered the grand temple and asks about everything.” The Master heard the remark, and said, “This is a rule of propriety.”’ He is being called ignorant for asking, and his answer is that asking is the correct behaviour.

Analects Book III (八佾) — Chinese with Legge's translation

How we traced it

  • We searched all twenty books of the Analects, in James Legge’s public-domain English and in the Chinese. No ‘bad question,’ no ‘stupid question,’ no unasked-question formula — and nothing in the Chinese that could produce one the searchable Analects ↗.
  • What is there is better. Book III, chapter 15: Confucius enters the grand temple and asks about everything, someone sneers that he evidently does not know the rites, and he replies that asking is the rite. That is a defence of question-asking made at his own expense, in public, under mockery Book III ↗.
  • And Book V, chapter 15 gives the phrase that Chinese speakers still use for this: 不恥下問 — Legge, ‘he was not ashamed to ask and learn of his inferiors.’ Confucius offers it as the reason a man was honoured with the title Wen. Shame, not stupidity, is the obstacle he names Book V ↗.
  • For the modern saying, the earliest dated instance we could find is a Dear Abby column in the Milwaukee Sentinel, 3 December 1970: ‘There is no such thing as a stupid question if it’s sincere.’ Carl Sagan later put a version of it in The Demon-Haunted World. Nobody has produced anything older, and we are not going to guess the modern trail ↗.
Public domain

Everything genuine here is free to reuse. The Chinese Analects is ancient, and James Legge’s English (1861–1893) is long out of copyright, so both the temple passage and the ‘not ashamed to ask’ line can be quoted without permission — which is a good reason to quote those instead of the modern slogan. Modern translations of the Analects (Waley, Lau, Slingerland, Watson and others) are all in copyright and produce different wordings. The 1970 newspaper column and Carl Sagan’s book are likewise protected. This is not legal advice.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This one has been asked publicly for years without a straight answer — a literature forum thread on it has passed eleven thousand views with nothing accepted. Here is what the sources actually support.

Not Confucius no Chinese text

Twenty books, roughly five hundred passages, searchable in the original: nothing corresponds. And no proposed Chinese wording circulates alongside the English, which is the pattern for a modern invention rather than a translation check the text ↗.

Conflates two sayings unsourced

The one unaccepted answer on Stack Exchange offers ‘the man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life’ as the Confucian original. That is a separate proverb, usually labelled Chinese or Japanese, and itself unverified. Neither is in the Analects.

Einstein and Ramon Bautista no citation

Variants circulate under both names on Goodreads and Quora with nothing attached — no book, no interview, no date. Einstein in particular functions as a general-purpose signature for any sentence about curiosity.

A 1970 newspaper column earliest dated

‘There is no such thing as a stupid question if it’s sincere’ — Dear Abby, 3 December 1970. That is the oldest dated instance anyone has produced for the family. It may well be older; nobody has shown it the dated citation ↗.

Better than the fake use these instead

Analects III.15, the grand temple; V.15, ‘not ashamed to ask and learn of his inferiors’; and XV.16, where the Master says of a man who never asks ‘what shall I think of this?’ that he can do nothing with him. All in Legge, all public domain, all quotable with a chapter number.

Not Confucius — no Chinese exists for it and nothing like it is in the Analects. It belongs to the modern ‘no stupid questions’ family, dated no earlier than 1970 the modern trail ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

Every teacher, manager and induction session needs a sentence that gives people permission to admit they are lost, and this one does the job in eight words. The Confucius signature is a bolt-on: it converts a kindness into a rule, which is more persuasive to the person too embarrassed to raise a hand.

What is a shame is that the real thing is more useful. Confucius does not tell you your question is fine; he tells you a story about being publicly mocked for asking too many, and shrugs that asking was the correct behaviour. That is a better argument, because it concedes that you will look foolish and says do it anyway.

He does not say your question is fine. He says he was mocked for asking, and that asking was correct.

What Confucius actually says about asking

Analects III.15 — entering the grand temple, he asks about everything; told this proves he does not know the rites, he answers that this is the rite. Legge’s English is public domain.

Analects X.14 repeats the temple detail in the chapter describing his daily conduct: on entering the ancestral temple of the state, he asked about everything.

Analects V.15 — Kong Wenzi earned his honorific because he was ‘of an active nature and yet fond of learning, and he was not ashamed to ask and learn of his inferiors’: 不恥下問.

Analects XV.16 — the reverse case: ‘When a man is not in the habit of saying, “What shall I think of this? What shall I think of this?” I can indeed do nothing with him!’

Analects XIX.6, from his student Zi Xia rather than the Master: learning extensively, inquiring with earnestness, reflecting with self-application.

Every one of these can be cited with a book and chapter number. That is what a real quotation looks like.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Knowledge Humility

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Analects Book III (八佾) — the grand temple passagectext.org

Chapter 15 in Chinese with Legge’s public-domain English: Confucius asks about everything, and calls the asking correct.
Analects Book V (公冶長) — 不恥下問ctext.org

Chapter 15: ‘he was not ashamed to ask and learn of his inferiors’ — the phrase still used in Chinese for this idea.
'No such thing as a stupid question'en.wikipedia.org

The modern saying, with the earliest dated citation so far: a Dear Abby column of 3 December 1970.
Source of the quote 'The only bad question is an unasked one'?literature.stackexchange.com

The unanswered question this page exists for: 11,000+ views, one unsourced answer, nothing accepted.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Confucius

Confucius

551–479 BC · Chinese teacher and philosopher (here, the misattributed figure)

Confucius (Kong Qiu, 551–479 BC) was, above everything else, a teacher, and the Analects is largely a record of him being asked things and answering. Questions are the book’s literal form. That makes him a magnetic false author for any classroom slogan — and it also makes the fakes unnecessary, because the real material on the subject is better: a man who asked about every object in a temple while onlookers laughed, and who thought the only thing standing between you and knowing was your embarrassment.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Not in the Analects in Chinese or in translation. A modern classroom saying of unknown authorship; earliest dated instance of the related ‘no such thing as a stupid question’ is a Dear Abby column, Milwaukee Sentinel, 3 December 1970. Genuine parallels: Analects III.15 and V.15 (Legge).

MLA (9th ed.)

Anonymous modern saying. Not in the Analects. Compare Confucius, Analects III.15, trans. James Legge.

APA (7th ed.)

Anonymous modern saying. Not Confucius. Compare Confucius, Analects III.15 (J. Legge, Trans.).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The only bad question is an unasked one’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-only-bad-question-is-an-unasked-one

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