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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.

Zhuangzi

Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.
ZHUANGZI

Establishment Fact Right Word Yourself
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
Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
ZHUANGZI

Absence Happiness Perfection Wisdom
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.
ZHUANGZI

Beautiful Existence Rare Regard Transformation Ugly Value
A battering ram can knock down a city wall, but it cannot stop a hole. Different things have different uses.
ZHUANGZI

Different Power Stop Wall
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
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.
ZHUANGZI

Body Chance Endurance Escape Freedom Joy Possession Sage Transformation World
Can a man cling to the positive without any negative in contrast to which it is seen to be positive? If he claims to do so he is a rouge or a madman.
ZHUANGZI

Mad Man Negative Positive
The space under the sky is occupied by all things in their unity.
ZHUANGZI

Occupy Sky Space Unity
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
The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.
ZHUANGZI

Help Man Old Perfection
He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.
ZHUANGZI

Fame Fear Pursue Risk Scholar
The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers – because it lives with those who know how to speak.
ZHUANGZI

Children Deep Learning Live Talk Teacher
When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.
ZHUANGZI

Affirmation Attachment Negative Oneself Religious
Fish live in water. Men die in it. Nature is diverse, and not all tastes are the same.
ZHUANGZI

Death Deep Diversity Live Men Nature Taste Water
Are you and I perchance caught up in a dream from which we have not yet awakened?
ZHUANGZI

Awake Dreams Myself Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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