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The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.

Zhuangzi

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.
ZHUANGZI

Affect Ceremony Charity Donation Lost Man Mindset Music Nature Original Satisfaction Seek
The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.
ZHUANGZI

Complication Confusion Effect Existence Forget Life Obsession Ourselves Society
Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.
ZHUANGZI

Education Form Low Punishment Reward
Being is thoughtless-beyond and beneath all categories of thought. Expression is the realization of creative thought. Being is still; expression, moving. But then if I do not strive, who will?
ZHUANGZI

Beyond Creativity Expression Myself Realize Thinking Willing
He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.
ZHUANGZI

Fame Fear Pursue Risk Scholar
Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy.
ZHUANGZI

Broad Busy Calm Greatness Understand
Are you and I perchance caught up in a dream from which we have not yet awakened?
ZHUANGZI

Awake Dreams Myself Yourself
If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind.
ZHUANGZI

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

Bliss Count Form Happiness Human Joy Source Transition
The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate, fail to see.
ZHUANGZI

Discrimination Embrace Failure Man Myself Ordinary See
Breathing control gives man strength, vitality, inspiration, and magic powers.
ZHUANGZI

Breathe Control Inspirational Magic Meditation Power Strength
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words, so I can have a few words with him?
ZHUANGZI

Finding Forget Man Myself Talk Word
Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.
ZHUANGZI

Infinite Knowledge Life
Only the intelligent knows how to identify all things as one. When one is at ease with himself, one is near Tao. This is to let Nature take its own course.
ZHUANGZI

Flow Himself Identify Intelligence Nature Path Religion Whole
Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.
ZHUANGZI

Beginning Born Death Existence Limitation Philosophy Spiritual Start
The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight, hides himself as perfectly as he can.
ZHUANGZI

Hide Himself Man Perfection Person Respect Sight
Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water, and fling up their heels. Such is the real nature of horses.
ZHUANGZI

Animal Drink Hairs Horse Nature Protection Reality Skin
Study is to study what cannot be studied. Undertaking means undertaking what cannot be undertaken. Philosophizing is to philosophize about what cannot be philosophized about. Knowing that knowing is unknowable is true perfection.
ZHUANGZI

Knowledge Known Perfection Philosophy Religious Spirituality Study True Unknown
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity.
ZHUANGZI

Capacity Clear Eyes Mindset Organ Wisdom
You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, the creature of a season.
ZHUANGZI

Creature Ocean Season Summer Talk Yourself
Do not let the artificial obliterate the natural; do not let will obliterate destiny; do not let virtue be sacrificed to fame.
ZHUANGZI

Artificial Destiny Fame Natural Sacrifice Virtue
There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. There is something. There is nothing.
ZHUANGZI

Beginning Philosophy
Never admire a man by his strength; judge him in how he uses it- A way is made by walking it.
ZHUANGZI

Admire Judgement Man Strength Walk Way
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?
ZHUANGZI

Case Death Finding Live Pleasant Return
He who regards all things as one is a companion of Nature.
ZHUANGZI

Himself Infinite Nature Oneself Regard Whole
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.
ZHUANGZI

Cloud Follow Heaven Light Understand Wisdom Yourself
The Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish, the natural condition of life.
ZHUANGZI

Condition Life Man Natural River Way

The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.

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The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.

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Popular Authors

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