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For we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Zhuangzi

To be constant is to be useful. To be useful is to realize one’s true nature. Realization of one’s true nature is happiness. When one reaches happiness, one is close to perfection.
ZHUANGZI

Constant Happiness Nature Oneself Perfection Realize
We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
ZHUANGZI

Gradual Opinion Ourselves Perspective Point View
The enlightened attention rejects nothing nor welcomes anything-like a mirror it responds equally to all.
ZHUANGZI

Attention Enlightenment Equality Mirror Respond Welcome
Breathing control gives man strength, vitality, inspiration, and magic powers.
ZHUANGZI

Breathe Control Inspirational Magic Meditation Power Strength
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
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.
ZHUANGZI

Generous Greatness Passion Small Speech Wisdom
Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy.
ZHUANGZI

Broad Busy Calm Greatness Understand
If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind.
ZHUANGZI

Calm Mindset Water
To be truly ignorant, be content with your own knowledge.
ZHUANGZI

Ignorance Knowledge True Yourself
But you now, you wear your soul on your sleeve, exhausting your energy, propping yourself up on a tree, mumbling, or bent over your desk, asleep. Heaven gives you a form and you wear it out by pointless argument.
ZHUANGZI

Argument Energy Exhaust Form Heaven Point Soul Tree
The eyes envy the mind.
ZHUANGZI

Eyes Jealous Mindset
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
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
ZHUANGZI

Butterfly Dreams Man Myself
If one is true to one’s inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?
ZHUANGZI

Deep Follow Teacher True Wisdom
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
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.
ZHUANGZI

Beginning End Exercise Flow Religious Road Spirituality Thinking
He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul.
ZHUANGZI

Carry Growth Himself Lose Machine Work
The one-legged creature is envious of the millipede; the millipede is envious of the snake; the snake is envious of the wind; the wind is envious of the eye; the eye is envious of the heart.
ZHUANGZI

Animal Creature Eyes Heart Jealous Wind
Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way, and forget that the going is easy.
ZHUANGZI

Beginning Easy Forget Right Yourself
Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.
ZHUANGZI

Absence Luck Principle
Sound intelligence promises victory in every battle.
ZHUANGZI

Battle Intelligence Promise Sound Victory
Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.
ZHUANGZI

Conflict Harmony Life Stop
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
All men know the utility of useful things; but they do not know the utility of futility.
ZHUANGZI

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

Affirmation Attachment Negative Oneself Religious
The ten thousand things belong to one storehouse and life and death share the same body.
ZHUANGZI

Body Death Life Share Store
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

For we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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For we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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