Lao Tzu Quotes
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Greed for enlightenment and immortality is no different than greed for material wealth. It is self-centered and dualistic, and thus an obstacle to true attainment. Therefore these states are never achieved by those who covet them; rather, they are the reward of the virtuous.
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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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One who believes in himself has no need to convince others.
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Without going outside, you may know the whole world!
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The sage is one with the world, and lives in harmony with it.
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The Way to do is to be.
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Only fools seek power, and the greatest fools seek it through force.
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The Way is ever without action, yet nothing is left undone.
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The good man is the teacher of the bad, And the bad is the material from which the good may learn. He who does not value the teacher, Or greatly care for the material, Is greatly deluded although he may be learned. Such is the essential mystery.
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Good leaders reach solutions, and then stop. They do not dare to rely on force.
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What's the difference between beautiful and ugly?
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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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Knowledge studies others, wisdom is self known.
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It (Tao) is eternally without desire. So, it can be called small. All things return to it, although it does not make itself their ruler. So, it can be called great.
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Those who understand others are clever, those who understand themselves are wise.
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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.
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First and last follow each other.
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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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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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The purest white seems stained.