Lao Tzu Quotes
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The eternal void is filled with infinite possibilities.
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What is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out.
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Does one scent appeal more than another? Do you prefer this flavor, or that feeling? Is your practice sacred and your work profane? Then your mind is separated: from itself, from oneness, from the Tao.
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Water benefits the ten thousand things and does not oppose them.
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When the highest type of people hear Tao (Truth), they diligently practice it. When the average type of people hear Tao, they half believe in it. When the lowest type of people hear Tao, they laugh at it. If they did not laugh, it would not be Tao.
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The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.
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When life begins we are tender and weak When life ends we are stiff and rigid All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life and dry in brittle in death So the soft and supple are the companion of life While the stiff and unyielding are the companions of death An army that cannot yield will be defeated A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind Thus by Nature's own decree the hard and strong are defeated while the soft and gentle are triumphant.
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Be truly whole, and all things will return to you.
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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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Know honor, Yet keep humility. Be the valley of the universe! Being the valley of the universe, Ever true and resourceful, Return to the state of the uncarved block.
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If your virtue is especially radiant, it can be possible to open a pathway to the subtle realm and receive these celestial teachings directly from the immortals.
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The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls, but in the space within to be lived in.
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When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends.
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The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.
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The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
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Returning to the source is stillness. It is returning to one's fate. Returning to one's fate is eternal.
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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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Take [preventive] action before things happen. Establish order before disorder has begun.
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Peace and quiet govern the world.
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Those who stand on their toes are not steady.
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Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?
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If you search everywhere, yet cannot find what you are seeking, it is because what you seek is already in your possession.
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Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity.
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The ten thousand things flourish and then each returns to the root from which it came. Returning to the root is stillness. Through stillness each fulfils its destiny.