Tao Ching Quotes & Sayings

To only responsible choice I can make is to be love and happiness." Vincellent
"Love the world as you love yourself".Lao Tze
"The next step in mans evolution will be the survival of the wisest. — Deepak Chopra

Initially I was very drawn to the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist philosophy. It was helping me deal with the balance of these external and internal issues with my chess life. Tai chi is the martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy. Initially, I had no intention of competing in the martial arts; it was just the meditation. — Joshua Waitzkin

Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The critics often invent authors; they select two dissimilar works - the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, say - attribute them to the same writer and then determine most scrupulously the psychology of this interesting homme de lettres ... — Jorge Luis Borges

Instead of trying to be a mountain, teaches the ancient Tao Te Ching, "Be the valley of the universe."4 In this way, you are restored to wholeness and so "all things will come to you. — Eckhart Tolle

The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching's universe and then ten thousand more. — Cheryl Strayed

When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, There arises the recognition of evil. - Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching — Scott Westerfeld

The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of all things. — Laozi

Scholarly translations of the Tao Te Ching as a manual for rulers use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist "sage," his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for twenty-five hundred years. — Ursula K. Le Guin

For the sage
Heaven and Earth join
in bestowing the greatest gifts — Lao-Tzu

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence. — Wayne Dyer

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. — Laozi

If you want to be reborn,' it is written in the Tao Te Ching, 'let yourself die.' This is what I've been having trouble with, the fact that letting go can feel, at times, like a death. Someday, I know, I will lose everything. All the small deaths along the way are practice runs for the big ones, asking us to learn to be present, to grow in faith, to be grateful for what is. Life is finite and short. But this new task, figuring out how to let go of so much that has been precious
my children, my youth, my life as I know it
can feel like a bitter foretaste of other losses yet to come. — Katrina Kenison

The more you talk of it, the less you understand. — Laozi

When there is no desire, all things are at peace — Laozi

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? LAO-TZU, Tao-te-Ching — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Yielding, like ice about to melt. — Laozi

Love melts the hardest hearts
Enters between the cracks — Rick Julian

Tao Te Ching says that it is only through retreat rather than pursuit, through inaction rather than action, that we acquire wisdom. "Those with less become content," says the Tao, "those with more become confused." The poems, still widely read, have been hailed as a hermit manifesto for more than two thousand years. — Michael Finkel

The sage is sick of being sick (Tao Te Ching) — Robert Baohm

The farther you go, the less you know. — Laozi

We are born male. We must learn to be men. Remember, strength is a force. It is an attribute of the heart. Its opposite is not weakness and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention. If you are able to discern the path with heart and follow it even when at the moment it seems wrong, then and only then are you strong. Remember the words of Tao te ching. "The only true strength is a strength that people do not fear." Strength based in force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave. — Kent Nerburn

The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground
While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above. — Lao-Tzu

Countless words
count less
than the silent balance
between yin and yang — Lao-Tzu

When you are one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly. — Laozi

Two names emerge from a single origin and both are called mysterious. — Lao-Tzu

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad. — Lao-Tzu

Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not. — Laozi

The Tao is like a well; used but never used up. — Laozi

Physicists have yet to find anything capable of exceeding our known speed of light. The Tao cannot be named, and so I say there is one thing that out-paces all things: we call it "thought." I can fill a room a with light before I'm anywhere near the switch. — Laurie Perez

ain't nothing perfect but our brokenness — Rick Julian

The more you know the less you talk. — A.R. Rahman

Do the Tao Now At your next meal, practice portion control by asking yourself after several bites if you're still famished. If not, just stop and wait. If no hunger appears, call it complete. At this one meal, you'll have practiced the last sentence of the 9th verse of the Tao Te Ching: "Retire when the [eating] is done; this is the way of heaven. — Wayne W. Dyer

The best runner leaves no tracks. - Tao Te Ching — Christopher McDougall

To know non-knowing is optimal
to imagine one knows
is affliction of mind — Lao-Tzu

Going forward seems like retreat ... — Laozi

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. — Lao-Tzu

To bear and not to own; to act and not lay claim; to do the work and let it go: for just letting it go is what makes it stay. — Lao-Tzu

Who acts in stillness finds stillness in his life. — Lao-Tzu

He who knows others is wise; He who knows himself is enlightened. TAO TE CHING (600 B.C.E.) — Harvey Spencer Lewis

Earth is a divine organism
it cannot be successfully manipulated
Who attempts manipulation will encounter defeat — Lao-Tzu

Too many words cause exhaustion
[In the mind or from the mouth]
Better to abide in stillness — Lao-Tzu

Observe how endings become beginnings. — Laozi

44. Abidement Bullshit money or basic freedoms: which is dearer? Contentment or competition: which is more valuable? Compensation or employment: which is more painful? Great coitus incurs great expense, And great wealth incurs fucking phoniness, But great abidement incurs no loss. Therefore: He who knows when to take it easy Can't be worried about that shit, And may long endure ups and downs, strikes and gutters. Tao Te Ching: 44. Contentment Fame or Self: which is dearer? Self or wealth: which is more valuable? Profit or loss: which is more painful? Great love incurs great expense, And great wealth incurs great theft, But great contentment incurs no loss. Therefore: He who knows when to stop Does not continue into danger, And may long endure. — The Church Of The Latter-Day Dude

The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. — Laozi

He who is attached to things will suffer much. — Laozi

Practice non-action. Work without doing. — Laozi

I was her daughter, but more. I was Karen, Cheryl, Leif. Karen Cheryl Leif. KarenCherylLeif. Our names blurred into one in my mother's mouth all my life. She whispered it and hollered it, hissed it and crooned it. We were her kids, her comrades, the end of her and the beginning. We took turns riding shotgun with her in the car. "Do I love you this much?" she'd ask us, holding her hands six inches apart. "No," we'd say, with sly smiles. "Do I love you this much?" she'd ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching's universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve. — Cheryl Strayed

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. — Laozi

There is
a time to live
and a time to die
but never to reject the moment. — Lao-Tzu

Every day, mindful practice. When the mind is disciplined then the Way can work for us. Otherwise, all we do is talk of Tao; everything is just words; and the world will know us as its one great fool. — Li Ching-Yuen

He who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm. — Laozi

When I feel off, I read the 'Tao Te Ching' to get my equilibrium right. I started reading it in the eleventh grade. — Eddie Huang

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. — Laozi

How can one know the eternal origin?
By letting go of ideas
and allowing it to reveal itself — Lao-Tzu

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped. — Laozi

When you study the Tao Te Ching, you have to use your heart to try to imagine what Tao really is. — Henry Chang

Perfect tranquillity is the way of heaven and earth. — Lao-Tzu

The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations have caught meanings in their net, but prosily, letting the beauty slip through. And in poetry, beauty is no ornament; it is the meaning. It is the truth. We have that on good authority. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The Master's power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old. — Laozi

Peace is our original state — Lao-Tzu

Emptiness appears barren
yet is infinite fullness — Lao-Tzu

Revere the unity of all-that-is
carry out your daily activities with compassion;
if you do not limit your compassion,
you yourself will not be limited. — Lao-Tzu

Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures. — Lao-Tzu

Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!'
'Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.
'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.'
'Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.'
'Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.'
'Like you?'
'Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.'
'Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides. — Kerry Greenwood

With a combination of proper lighting and climate control he managed to achieve a different ecological niche in each gallery. In the African section, where the imbrications of Augustine, Mafouz and Okri lay decomposing, he grew sorghum and Dioscorea yams. In the Chinese gallery where the Tao Te Ching and countless Confucian annotations moldered, he grew rice, crab apples and barley. Over the poems of Neruda and Borges himself, he grew potatoes. Each plant in this new Eden he lovingly tainted with the virus of civilization

- from the short story "Resurrection — Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

Although some popular religious texts such as the New Testament, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, or Tibetan Book of the Dead contain interesting insights and stories, it is the Jewish religious texts such as the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) that contain valuable information on acquiring wealth. — H.W. Charles

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. — Laozi

According to tradition, the originator of Taoism, Lao-tzu, was an older contemporary of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius, who died in 479 B.C.1 Lao-tzu is said to have been the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short book of aphorisms, setting forth the principles of the Tao and its power or virtue (Te e). But traditional Chinese philosophy ascribes both Taoism and Confucianism to a still earlier source, to a work which lies at the very foundation of Chinese thought and culture, dating anywhere from 3000 to 1200 B.C. This is the I Ching, or Book of Changes. — Alan W. Watts

The essential Taoist approach to life is captured in the phrase ching-jing wu-wei, literally, "sitting still doing nothing." Doing nothing doesn't mean sitting around all day like a bump on a log, but rather doing only those things that really need to be done and doing them in a way that does not run counter to the natural order of Tao and the patterned flow of cosmic forces. It means engaging only in spontaneous, unpremeditated activity, doing things purely for their own sake rather than for ulterior motives, and living in harmony with rather than trying to conquer nature. — Daniel P. Reid

Failure is our greatest teacher
Blame blinds us to her lessons — Rick Julian

There are three layers to the universe. In the lower, Tai Ching, and the middle, Shan Ching, the hindrance of a physical bodily existence is required. Those who fail to live consistently in accord with the Tao reside here. In the upper, Yu Ching, there is only Tao: the bondage of form is broken, and the only thing existing is the exquisite energy dance of the immortal divine beings. — Laozi