Lao Tzu Quotes
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Carrying body and soul and embracing the one, Can you avoid separation?
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Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habit.
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Strong winds do not last all morning, hard rains do not last all day.
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The sage governs by emptying senses and filling bellies.
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The one who does not honor the teacher and the one who does not honor the task, although ever so knowledgeable, they are confused.
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Other people are occupied, I alone am unwilling, like the outcast.
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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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When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.
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The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.
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Stillness is easy to maintain.
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The subtlest of subtleties, this is the gateway to all mysteries.
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The hard and stiff are death's companions. The soft and weak are life's companions.
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The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist. The next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst one is the leader that is despised ... The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When they have accomplished their task, the people say, "Amazing! We did it, all by ourselves!
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The highest virtue is not virtuous. Therefore it has virtue. The lowest virtue holds on to virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.
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An integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing.
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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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. . . These are notions of the mind, which is like a knife, always chipping away at the Tao, trying to render it graspable and manageable. But that which is beyond form is ungraspable, and that which is beyond knowing is unmanageable. There is, however, this consolation: She who lets go of the knife will find the Tao at her fingertips.
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The river and the sea can be kings of a hundred valleys, because they lie below them.
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The forceful and violent will not die from natural causes.
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The Way is empty, yet inexhaustible, like an abyss!