Lao Tzu Quotes
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He who hoards much loses much.
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Distortion upon distortion: . . . the more one uses the mind, the more confused one becomes.
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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 highest tone is hard to hear.
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Truly, only acting without thought of one's life is superior to valuing one's life.
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The valley spirit never dies. It is called the mystical female.
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Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain. Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well. {But spiritual insight transcends death.}
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A good door needs no lock, still it can't be opened.
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The surest test if a person be sane, is if she accepts life whole, as it is.
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For all things difficult to acquire, the intelligent man works with perseverance.
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Those who know others are intelligent Those who know themselves have insight. Those who master others have force Those who master themselves have strength.Those who know what is enough are wealthy. Those who persevere have direction. Those who maintain their position endure. And those who die and yet do not perish, live on.
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He who treasures his body as much as the world can care for the world.
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Face the simple fact before it comes involved. Solve the small problem before it becomes big.
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A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.
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To be of few words is natural.
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Simple, like uncarved wood.
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Knowing others is to be clever. Knowing yourself is to be enlightened. Overcoming others requires force. Overcoming yourself requires strength.
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If you really want everything, then give up everything.
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Do not imagine that an integral being has the ambition of enlightening the unaware or raising worldly people to the divine realm. To her, there is no self and other, and hence no one to be raised; no heaven and hell, and hence no destination.
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What man has more than enough and gives it to the world? Only the man of Tao.
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That which is achieved the most, still has the whole of its future yet to be achieved.
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By compassion one can be brave.
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Do not strive for the shine of jade, but clatter like stone.
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Just as the value of a house lies in its location, The value of a mind lies in its depth, The value of giving lies in the presence of a generous spirit, The value of words lies in their reliability.