Lao Tzu Quotes

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.

As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.

Stop trying to leave,
and you will arrive.

To know when you have enough is to be rich beyond measure.

Great Acts Are Made Up of Small Deeds

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Act without expectation.

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

He who is contented is rich.

Nothing in this world is more flexible and yielding than water.
Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong,
None can withstand it,
Because they have no way to change it.
So the flexible overcome the adamant,
The yielding overcome the forceful.

Seeing the small is called clarity;
Keeping flexible is called strength.
Using the shining radiance,
You return again to the light,
Not leaving anything to harm yourself.
This is called entering the eternal.

The Way of illumination seems dark,
The Way of advancement seems retiring.
The Way of equality seems to categorize;
Higher virtue seems empty,
Great purity seems ignominious,
Broad virtue seems insufficient,
Constructive virtue seems careless.
Simple honesty seems changeable,
Great range has no boundaries,
Great vessels are finished late;
The great sound has a rarified tone,
The great image has no form.
The Way hides in namelessness.
Only the Way can enhance and perfect.

Eliminate sagacity, abandon knowledge,
And the people benefit a hundredfold,
Eliminate humanitarianism, abandon duty,
And the people return to familial love.
Eliminate craft, abandon profit,
And theft will no longer exist.
These three become insufficient
When used for embellishment
Causing there to be attachments.
See the basic,
Embrace the unspoiled,
Lessen selfishness,
Diminish desire.

Impartiality is the highest nobility;
The highest nobility is divine,
And the divine is the Way.
This Way is everlasting,
Not endangered by physical death.

Attain the climax of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet:
As myriad things act in concert,
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
Acts at random, in ignorance of the constant, bode ill.
Knowing the constant gives perspective;
This perspective is impartial.