Maybe this is what Confucius had in mind:
American scientists: hunger makes people learn better
printResizeA new scientific study finds that hunger can enhance people’s learning and memory performance and make people more intelligent.
According to the academic journal Nature Neuroscience, it has
been discovered that when people are hungry, a kind of hormone called
"ghrelin" is produced in the stomach, which has much to do with
people’s appetite.However Tamas L. Horvath at Yale School of Medicine and other
scientists found in a research that hormone ghrelin influences the
nerve cells that are responsible for learning. Experiment on animals
shows that hormone ghrelin can remarkably promote the learning ability
and memory of the mice tested.Scientists explain that hormone ghrelin, after produced in
stomach, enters human brain through blood circulation, and causes a
series of reactions such as stimulating a variety of growth factors in
pituitary gland, which accordingly arouses chain effects in other parts
of the brain therefore improve brain functions.
When he says:
"I never instruct those who aren’t full of passion, and I never enlighten those who aren’t struggling to explain themselves.
"If I show you one corner and you can’t show me the other three, I’ll say nothing more (7.8)
And:
"Study as if you’ll never know enough, as if you’re afraid of losing it all.’ (8.17)
The Useless Tree 
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