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.
The World is Large – Its beauty indescrible.
The Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish, the natural condition of life.
The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers – because it lives with those who know how to speak.
For all people strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and all strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. This is why there is chaos.
He who knows the activities of Nature lives according to Nature.
Why don’t you try wandering with me to the Palace of Not-Even-Anything.
Running around accusing others is not as good as laughing. And enjoying a good laugh is not as good as going along with things.