Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.
Those who know are not learned. Those who are learned do not know.
Without desire there is stillness, and the world settles by itself.
Heaven and Earth are not kind. They regard all things as offerings.
Intelligent people know others. Enlightened people know themselves.
When leading people and serving Heaven, nothing exceeds moderation.
If you worry more for others' beliefs, then you will be their slave.
Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?
Displaying riches and titles with pride brings about one's downfall.
Can you care for the people and rule the country and not be cunning?
Moderation means prevention. Prevention means achieving much virtue.
Conquering the world and changing it, I do not think it can succeed.
The sage regards things as difficult, and thereby avoids difficulty.
Because he (the Sage) demands no honor, he will never be dishonored.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends.
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
All things of the world are born of being; being is born of nonbeing.
Harmony is called the eternal. Knowing the eternal is called clarity.
When the great Tao is abandoned, benevolence and righteousness arise.
What the Way is to the world, the stream is to the river and the sea.
There was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.
He who treasures his body as much as the world can care for the world.
Can you gather your vital breath and yet be tender like a newborn baby?
The Tao never acts with force, yet there is nothing that it can not do.
Tao loves and nourishes all things, but does not dominate it over them.
Sometimes gain comes from losing, and sometimes loss comes from gaining.
Who has excess and supplies the world? Only the one who follows the Way.
Knowing the future is the flower of the Way, and the beginning of folly.
Praise leads to weakness. Getting it causes fear, losing it causes fear.
Because he (the Sage) opposes no one, no one in the world can oppose him.
Abandon wisdom, discard knowledge, and people will benefit a hundredfold.
What Heaven detests, who knows why? Even the sage considers it difficult.
Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
Can you comprehend everything in the four directions and still do nothing?
The sage does not strive to be great. Thereby he can accomplish the great.
Those who defeat others are strong, those who defeat themselves are mighty.
The Way is hidden and nameless. Still only the Way nourishes and completes.
Abandon cleverness, discard profit, and thieves and robbers will disappear.
Only I am clumsy, like drifting on the waves of the sea, without direction.
Misery is what happiness rests upon. Happiness is what misery lurks beneath.
Heaven's net is very vast. It is sparsely meshed, yet nothing slips through.
Rituals are the end of fidelity and honesty, and the beginning of confusion.
The value comes from what is there, but the use comes from what is not there.
We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it liveable.
The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet.
The sage never strives for greatness, and can therefore accomplish greatness.
Abandon benevolence, discard duty, and people will return to the family ties.
Keeping plenty of gold and jade in the palace makes no one able to defend it.
Although he travels all day, the sage never loses sight of his luggage carts.