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

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.

True depth of understanding is wide and steady, Shallow understanding is lazy and wandering, Words of wisdom are precise and clear.

Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.

Never admire a man by his strength; judge him in how he uses it- A way is made by walking it.

A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation.

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.

The ten thousand things belong to one storehouse and life and death share the same body.

The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.

If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.