“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.”

The Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish, the natural condition of life.

Those who realise their folly are not true fools.

When people do not ignore what they should ignore, but ignore what they should not ignore, this is known as ignorance.

The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing. It receives but does not keep.

Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only ‘certain’ standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth.

One whose inner being is fixed upon such greatness emits a Heavenly glow. Even though he has this Heavenly glow, others will see him as just a man. Someone who has reached this point will begin to be consistent.

Your mind must become one, do not try to understand with your ears but with your heart. Indeed, not with your heart but with your soul.

Sound intelligence promises victory in every battle.

Great knowledge is universal. Small knowledge is limited. Great words are inspiring; small words are chatter.

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.

The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers – because it lives with those who know how to speak.

To go outside what your charge was, and to try to solve everything yourself, is dangerous.

If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way.

Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things, and you will find yourself at one with the mysterious unity of the Universe.

When the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten.

Take care of your body, then the rest will automatically become stronger.

Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.

Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.

What fate can be worse than to know we have no one but ourselves to blame for our misfortunes!

I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man than that I am.

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.

I’m very fortunate because I love what I’m doing.

People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.

In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.