Lao Tzu Quotes
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Be content with an ordinary life.
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Everything in the universe is created from something, which in turn is created from nothing.
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The Way to do is to be.
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The small is easy to scatter.
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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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Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
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Instead of being afraid of death, we should try to awake to life; and the only death we should escape from is to forget the presence of God into us.
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Therefore: In dwelling, choose modest quarters, in thinking, value stillness, in dealing with others, be kind, in choosing words, be sincere, in leading, be just, in working, be competent, in acting, choose the correct timing. Follow these words and there will be no error.
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The valley spirit never dies. It is called the mystical female.
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Those who are quiet value the words. When their task is completed, people will say: We did it ourselves.
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If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, There must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, There must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, There must be peace in the heart.
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When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.
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Being is born of not being.
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Behave simply and hold on to purity.
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The most complete seems lacking. Yet in use it is not exhausted.
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If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself, if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
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Make the small big and the few many.
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The leader is best, When people are hardly aware of his existence, Not so good when people praise his government, Less good when people stand in fear, Worst, when people are contemptuous. Fail to honor people, and they will fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who speaks little, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, The people say, 'We did it ourselves.'
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Why is the sea king of a hundred streams? Because it lies below them... If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind. In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed.
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Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time' is to say 'I don't want to.'
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Things are not worth attending to, yet they have to be attended to.
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He does not praise himself - yet he is respectable.
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When the sage stands above people, they are not oppressed. When he leads people, they are not obstructed. The world will exalt him and not grow tired of him.
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The liberation cannot be reached but by means of the perception of the identity of the individual spirit with the universal spirit.