Laozi Quotes

Racing and hunting excite man's heart to madness.

Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows? It is empty, but lacks nothing. The more it moves, the more comes out of it.

Those who know are not learned. Those who are learned do not know.

Cut out doors and windows for the house. The holes make it useful.

Who can wait in stillness while the mud settles?

A good door needs no lock, still it can't be opened.

Because clarity and enlightenment are within your own nature, they are regained without moving an inch.

The leader's main job is to make themselves obsolete.

The skillful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels.

The sage never strives for the great, and thereby the great is achieved.

Thirty spokes are joined in the wheel's hub. The hole in the middle makes it useful.

When the worst student hears about the Way, he laughs out loud. If he did not laugh, it would be unworthy of being the Way.

The Way is eternal. Until your last day, you are free from peril.

A climb of eight hundred feet starts where the foot stands.

Ancient masters of excellence had a subtle essence, and a depth too profound to comprehend.

Why did the ancients praise the Way? Did they not say it was because you find what you seek and are saved from your wrongdoings?

Giving birth and nourishing, Bearing yet not possessing, Working yet not taking credit, Leading yet not dominating, This is the Primal Virtue.

A violent wind does not last for a whole morning.

The progress of the Way seems retreating.

Thorn bushes grow where armies have camped.

Know the white, But keep the black, Be an example to the world! Being an example to the world, Ever true and unwavering, Return to the infinite.

Water benefits the ten thousand things and does not oppose them.

In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them.

Good Government is not intrusive the people are hardly aware of it; the next best is felt yet loved; then comes that which is known and feared; the worst government is hated.

Nature is not anthropomorphic.

Act non-action; undertake no undertaking; taste the tasteless.

Those who make their living by collecting taxes cause the people to starve; when the people starve, the tax collectors, having no one to tax, starve also

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and if that step is the right step, it becomes the last step.

Those who do not trust enough should not be trusted.

Conclusions are ignorance arrested on the path to less ignorance.

The real is empty and the empty real

Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.

Use the light to return to clarity.

The separate parts make no carriage.

The unyielding army will not win.

When bitter enemies make peace, surely some bitterness remains.

The very highest is barely known. Then comes that which people know and love, Then that which is feared, Then that which is despised. Who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour.

Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny. Reversion to destiny is called eternity. Those who know eternity are called enlightened.

If you practice inaction, nothing will be left undone: For the way to acquire lordship over society is by invariably not interfering.

To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth. For constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen.

Requite injury with kindness.

Good leaders reach solutions, and then stop. They do not dare to rely on force.

My words are easy to understand and easy to perform, Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them.

The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls, but in the space within to be lived in.

Do not make them (people) weary at their work. If you do not make them weary, they will not be weary of you.

Those who have compassion when they do battle will be victorious. Those who likewise defend themselves will be safe. Heaven will rescue and protect them with compassion.

Those who of old were good practicers of Tao did not use it to make people bright, but rather used it to make them simple.

The one who is filled by virtue is like a newborn baby.

People are hard to govern. The rulers interfere with too much. That is why people are hard to govern.