“To be constant is to be useful. To be useful is to realize one’s true nature. Realization of one’s true nature is happiness. When one reaches happiness, one is close to perfection.”

When there is no more separation between ‘this’ and ‘that,’ it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.

Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.

If one is true to one’s inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?

So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar.

A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.

To have attained to the human form is a source of joy. What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.

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.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

Not the power to conquer others but the power to become one with others is the ultimate power.

Everybody knows what the moon is, everybody knows what this decade is, and everybody can tell a live astronaut who returned from the moon from one who didn’t.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.

I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission.

The ability to network successfully can be one of the greatest assets in business. It allows some people to find incredible opportunities, while others just watch from the sidelines.

One doesn’t remain a teenager forever.