When you are identified with the One, all things will be complete to you.
Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only ‘certain’ standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth.
Silence and non-action are the root of all things.
The hundred parts of the body are all complete in their places. Which should one prefer? Do you like them all equally? Are they all servants? Are they unable to control one another and need a ruler? Or do they become rulers and servants in turn? Is there any true ruler other than themselves?
The fact is that those who do not see themselves but who see others, who fail to grasp of themselves but who grasp others, take possession of what others have but fail to possess themselves. they are attracted to what others enjoy but fail to find enjoyment in themselves.
When the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten.
Calculate what man knows and it cannot compare to what he doesn’t know. Calculate the time he is alive and it cannot compare to the time before he was born. Yet man takes something so small and tries to exhaust the dimensions of something so large!
How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?
Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.
Good fortune is as light as a feather, but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.
Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things.
Compare birth with death, compare death with life; compare what is possible with what is not possible and compare what is not possible with what is possible; because there is, there is not, and because there is not, there is.
To go outside what your charge was, and to try to solve everything yourself, is dangerous.
Tao is the source of both fullness and emptiness. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.
People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?
A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.
To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent – herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients.
If one is true to one’s inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?
A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.
Sound intelligence promises victory in every battle.