Lao Tzu Quotes
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My words have an origin. My deeds have a sovereign. Truly, because people do not understand this, they do not understand me.
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Nature doesn't make long speeches.
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That which shrinks must first expand.
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We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it liveable.
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Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.
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Stillness is the ruler of haste.
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If you close your mind in judgements and traffic with desires, your heart will be troubled. If you keep your mind from judging and aren't led by the senses, your heart will find peace.
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Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
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The high must make the low its base.
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The value of teaching without words and accomplishing without action is understood by few in the world.
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Use the light that is in you to recover your natural clearness of sight.
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Displaying riches and titles with pride brings about one's downfall.
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Heaven's Way is like stretching a bow. The high is lowered and the low is raised. Excess is reduced and deficiency is replenished. Heaven's Way reduces excess and replenishes deficiency. People's Way is not so. They reduce the deficient and supply the excessive.
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Superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would not get done as well if they were not there, when they succeed they take no credit. And, because they take no credit, credit never leaves them.
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A good calculator does not need artificial aids.
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Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools. He uses them only when he has no choice.
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Misery is what happiness rests upon. Happiness is what misery lurks beneath.
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But in the present day men cast off gentleness, and are all for being bold; they spurn frugality, and retain only extravagance; they discard humility, and aim only at being first. Therefore they shall surely perish.
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The greatest virtue is to follow the Way utterly.
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Therefore, if a great kingdom humbles itself before a small kingdom, it shall make that small kingdom its prize. And if a small kingdom humbles itself before a great kingdom, it shall win over that great kingdom. Thus the one humbles itself in order to attain, the other attains because it is humble. If the great kingdom has no further desire than to bring men together and to nourish them, the small kingdom will have no further desire than to enter the service of the other. But in order that both may have their desire, the great one must learn humility.
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The truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface.
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Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world. Without looking out your window, you can see the essence of the Tao. The more you know, the less you understand. The Master arrives without leaving, sees the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing.
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Filling life exceedingly is called ominous.
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When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends.