Lao Tzu Quotes
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Develop the strength of a man, but live as gently as a woman.
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If you attach yourself to gross energies - loving this person, hating that clan, rejecting one experience or habitually indulging in another - then you will lead a series of heavy, attached lives. This can go on for a very long and tedious time.
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The Way is ever nameless.
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The Tao is great. The universe is great. Earth is great. Man is great. These are the four great powers. Man follows the earth. Earth follows the universe. The universe follows the Tao. The Tao follows only itself.
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The Tao is told is not the Tao.
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To produce things and to rear them, To produce, but not to take possession of them, To act, but not to rely on one's own ability, To lead them, but not to master them - This is called profound and secret virtue.
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Be content with an ordinary life.
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Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.
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Find a teacher who is an integral being, a beacon who extends his light and virtue with equal ease to those who appreciate him and those who don't. Shape yourself in his mold, bathe in his nourishing radiance, and reflect it out to the rest of the world.
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The longer you travel, the less you know.
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The small is easy to scatter.
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Racing through the field and hunting make the mind wild.
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Know the white, But keep the black, Be an example to the world! Being an example to the world, Ever true and unwavering, Return to the infinite.
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Meet the big while it is small.
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Some help others in order to receive blessings and admiration. This is simply meaningless. Some cultivate themselves in part to serve others, in part to serve their own pride. They will understand, at best, half of the truth. But those who improve themselves for the sake of the world - to these, the whole truth of the universe will be revealed.
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The reason for great distress is the body. Without it, what distress could there be?
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Prepare while it's easy.
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Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame. Therefore the Master fulfills her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes. She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.
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If I have just an ounce of sense, I follow the great Way, and fear only to stray from it.
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Abandon fancy theologies and imaginary ideas and do some ordinary daily work... {Engage in this work with} unswerving kindness and unending patience.
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People who have to fight for their living and are not afraid to die for it are higher persons than those who, stationed high, are too fat to dare to die.
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What people loathe the most is to be orphaned, desolate, unworthy. But this is what princes and kings call themselves.
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A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.
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People aren't against you; they are for themselves. The most dangerous risk of all - the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later. He who conquers others is strong, he who conquers himself is mighty.