Lao Tzu Quotes
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In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle - this everyone knows. Yet no one asks accordingly.
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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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Those who stand on their toes are not steady.
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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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What Heaven detests, who knows why? Even the sage considers it difficult.
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What is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out.
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Be truly whole, and all things will return to you.
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The truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface.
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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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Take [preventive] action before things happen. Establish order before disorder has begun.
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The most fundamental seems fickle.
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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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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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Not praising the deserving prevents envy.
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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 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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Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?
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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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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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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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Returning to the source is stillness. It is returning to one's fate. Returning to one's fate is eternal.
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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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In stillness the muddied water returns to clarity.
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The sturdiest virtue seems fragile.