Lao Tzu Quotes
-
The weak overcomes the strong. The soft overcomes the hard. Everybody in the world knows this, still nobody makes use of it.
-
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.
-
The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.
-
There was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.
-
To delight in conquest is to delight in slaughter.
-
If you correct your mind the rest of your life will fall into place.
-
Stillness overcomes heat.
-
Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?
-
The supreme rulers are hardly known by their subjects. The lesser are loved and praised. The even lesser are feared. The least are despised.
-
Take [preventive] action before things happen. Establish order before disorder has begun.
-
A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind. Thus by nature's own decree, the soft and gentle are triumphant.
-
The master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.
-
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.
-
Water benefits the ten thousand things and does not oppose them.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Accomplish but do not boast, accomplish without show, accomplish without arrogance, accomplish without grabbing, accomplish without forcing.
-
All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them. The Master is above the people, and no one feels oppressed. She goes ahead of the people, and no one feels manipulated. The whole world is grateful to her. Because she competes with no one, no one can compete with her.
-
Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
-
Not praising the deserving prevents envy.
-
Other people are occupied, I alone am unwilling, like the outcast.
-
The one who does not honor the teacher and the one who does not honor the task, although ever so knowledgeable, they are confused.
-
What should be shrunken must first be stretched.
-
Seeing the small is called clarity.