Lao Tzu Quotes
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The new life created by the final integration is self-aware yet without ego, capable of inhabiting a body yet not attached to it, and guided by wisdom rather than emotion. Whole and virtuous, it can never die.
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If Heaven were not clear it might rend. If Earth were not firm it might crumble.
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When the palace is magnificent, the fields are filled with weeds, and the granaries are empty.
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When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.
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Clay is used to make vases, but it is the emptiness they contain that makes them useful.
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The rigid and big belong below. The soft and weak belong above.
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Good Government is not intrusive the people are hardly aware of it; the next best is felt yet loved; then comes that which is known and feared; the worst government is hated.
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Your name or your body, what is dearer? Your body or your wealth, what is worthier?
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To manage your mind, know that there is nothing, and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
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Moderation means prevention. Prevention means achieving much virtue.
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The best people are like water, which benefits all things and does not compete with them. It stays in lowly places that others reject. This is why it is so similar to the Way.
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Not valuing wealth prevents theft.
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That which offers no resistance, overcomes the hardest substances.
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The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole. His constant practice is humility. He doesn't glitter like a jewel but lets himself be shaped by the Tao, as rugged and common as a stone.
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The most eloquent seems to stutter.
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Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.
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He who loves does not dispute: He who disputes does not love.
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Yielding, like ice about to melt.
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If princes and kings could follow it (Tao), all things would by themselves abide, Heaven and Earth would unite and sweet dew would fall. People would by themselves find harmony, without being commanded.
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The real art of governing consists, so far as possible, in doing nothing.
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The sage desires no desire, does not value rare treasures, learns without learning, recovers what people have left behind.
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The scholar gains every day; the man of Tao loses every day.
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Let people take death seriously, and not travel far.
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The Tao's principle is spontaneity.