“Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.”

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.

There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. There is something. There is nothing.

The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.

Good fortune is as light as a feather, but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of it’s way.

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.

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.

The saying goes, ‘The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.’ This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up.

Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.

Breathing control gives man strength, vitality, inspiration, and magic powers.

Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.

Silence, and non action are the root of all things.