“To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent – herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients.”

Heaven does without doing through its purity, Earth does without doing through its calmness.

The ultimate happiness is doing nothing.

I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.

We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening

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.

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.

The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight, hides himself as perfectly as he can.

Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.

We possess our body by chance and we are already pleased with it. If our physical bodies went through ten thousand transformations without end, how incomparable would this joy be! Therefore the sage roams freely in the realm in which nothing can escape, but all endures.

Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy.

If you have insight, you use your inner eye, your inner ear, to pierce to the heart of things, and have no need of intellectual knowledge.

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

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.

Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.

To have a human form is a joyful thing.

The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.