Lao Tzu Quotes

“Cultivate virtue in the world, and it will be universal.”

“Approach your own inner life with a loving quality that accepts who you are without trying to change who you are.”

“If the majority doesn't laugh at you, beware that you must be saying something wrong. When the majority thinks you are a fool, only then is there some possibility of you being a wise man.”

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear.”

“When you extend your goodwill in every direction, regardless of circumstances, you begin to see that we are all one.”

“Having reached a high level of realization (or having accomplished anything in life), don't get excited or puffed up with pride but remain calm, humble, and in "perfect equanimity" if you want to continue in this deep state of consciousness.”

“Close your mouth,block off your senses,blunt your sharpness,untie your knots,soften your glare,settle your dust.This is the primal identity.”

“The more sharp weapons people have in a country, the bigger the disorder will be.”

“I am wearied, as if I lacked a home to go to.”

“No misfortune is worse than underestimating the enemy. Underestimating the enemy, I risk losing my treasure.”

“Treat the large as the small and the few as the many.”

“When everyone in the world sees beauty, then ugly exists.”

“True power is stillness within motion.”

“It is the child that sees the primordial secret in Nature and it is the child of ourselves we return to. The child within us is simple and daring enough to live the Secret.”

“The feminine values are the fountain of bliss. Know the masculine, Keep to the feminine.”

“All things flourish, and each returns to its source.”

“To attain to the human form must always be a source of joy. And then to undergo continuous transitions, with only the infinite to look forward to: what incomparable bliss is that!”

“. . . Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom.”

“As for the "proper way:" it is the beginning of disorder.”

“Geese are white, crows are black. No argument will change this.”

“The universe is deathless; Is deathless because, having no finite self, it stays infinite. A sound man by not advancing himself stays the further ahead of himself, By not confining himself to himself sustains himself outside himself: By never being an end in himself he endlessly becomes himself.”

“I will be fond of keeping still, and the people will of themselves become correct.”

“I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.”

“There is no greater mistake than to make light of an enemy By making light of an enemy many a kingdom has been lost.”

“Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.”