Lao Tzu Quotes
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Tao is beyond words and beyond understanding. Words may be used to speak of it, but they cannot contain it. Tao existed before words and names, before heaven and earth, before the ten thousand things. It is the unlimited father and mother of all limited things. Therefore, to see beyond boundaries to the subtle heart of things, dispense with names, with concepts, with expectations and ambitions and differences. Tao and its many manifestations arise from the same source: subtle wonder within mysterious darkness. This is the beginning of all understanding.
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Creating without claiming, Doing without taking credit, Guiding without interfering, This is Primal Virtue.
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There is no greater mistake than to make light of an enemy By making light of an enemy many a kingdom has been lost.
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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.
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Distortion upon distortion: . . . the more one uses the mind, the more confused one becomes.
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True words seem false.
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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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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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Giving birth and nourishing, Bearing yet not possessing, Working yet not taking credit, Leading yet not dominating, This is the Primal Virtue.
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Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
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The most complete seems lacking. Yet in use it is not exhausted.
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To be of few words is natural.
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The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced.
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If you really want everything, then give up everything.
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Can you let go of words and ideas, attitudes and expectations? If so, then the Tao will loom into view.
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Countless words count less than the silent balance between yin and yang
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Approach your own inner life with a loving quality that accepts who you are without trying to change who you are.
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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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When leading people and serving Heaven, nothing exceeds moderation.
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Do not strive for the shine of jade, but clatter like stone.
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The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.
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Not knowing of the eternal leads to unfortunate errors.
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By the accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love and kindness he may rule the world forever.
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To know how little one knows is to have genuine knowledge. Not to know how little one knows is to be deluded. Only those who know when they are deluded can free themselves from such delusion. The intelligent people are not deluded, because they know and accept their ignorance as ignorance, and thereby have genuine knowledge.