“At fifteen I set my heart upon learning, so that I might not be ignorant of things, to be modest in my learning, and never to be ashamed of asking questions.”

Confucius is describing the half-century of study that follows his schooling at fifteen, and the emphasis falls on the questions he was willing to keep asking. It is a passage about persistence rather than about prodigy, which is why the line is often quoted when somebody is defending a slow and lifelong education.