Excellent warriors are not violent.
LAOZIExcellent warriors are not violent.
LAOZIThe seed of mystery lies in muddy water. How can I perceive this mystery? Water becomes clear through stillness. How can I become still? By flowing with the stream.
LAOZIWeapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man’s tools. He uses them only when he has no choice.
LAOZISoftness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immoveable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.
LAOZIThere was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.
LAOZIMeet the difficult while it is easy.
LAOZIWhen people see some things as good, other things become bad.
LAOZIIn 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.
LAOZIMeandering leads to perfection.
LAOZIThe world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.
LAOZIIf you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.
LAOZIThat the soft overcomes the hard, and the yielding overcomes the resistant, is a fact known by all, but practiced by few.
LAOZIWhen virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.
LAOZIIf people live in constant fear of death, and if breaking the law is punished by death, then who would dare?
LAOZIThe more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.
LAOZIA scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
LAOZI