“Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.”

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?

Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise. By not being wise you will become wise later.

When there is no more separation between ‘this’ and ‘that,’ it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.

Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.

If one is true to one’s inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?

So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar.

A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.

To have attained to the human form is a source of joy. What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.

When an archer shoots for enjoyment, he has all his skill; when he shoots for a brass buckle, he gets nervous; when he shoots for a prize of gold, he begins to see two targets.

He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool; He who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion.

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?

Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.

All existing things are really one. We regard those that are beautiful and rare as valuable, and those that are ugly as foul and rotten. The foul and rotten may come to be transformed into what is rare and valuable, and the rare and valuable into what is foul and rotten.

When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.

My Dear Son… remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.

The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words.

Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions.

And other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.

Words can pacify a soul that’s hurt. And you ask me why I write?

He brought his food with him, he brought his language with him, he never spoke a word of English.

The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.