Lao Tzu Quotes

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.

When life begins we are tender and weak When life ends we are stiff and rigid All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life and dry in brittle in death So the soft and supple are the companion of life While the stiff and unyielding are the companions of death An army that cannot yield will be defeated A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind Thus by Nature's own decree the hard and strong are defeated while the soft and gentle are triumphant

What is strong and rigid is snapped and laid low. What is flexible and soft will always prevail.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.

Be soft, even if you stand to get squashed.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.

Flexibility, openness and softness are consorting with life. When you are rigid and you know the answer and don't listen to other people's point of view, you are consorting with death. Everything that is old and close to death is brittle and breaks apart including our thinking. So always stay flexible and soft and listen to others with caring. And truthfully, all of the verses hit me - especially when you think about them for days, and then write on them.

Virtuous persons and fruit-laden trees bow, but fools and dry sticks break because they do not bend.

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

That the soft overcomes the hard, and the yielding overcomes the resistant, is a fact known by all, but practiced by few.

Fixation is the way to death. Fluidity is the way to life.

Caught between glass and wood, that which breaks and that which bends, that which sings and that which survive. So our lives go.

Water is patient; it can stagnate and let itself be coated with scum if need be. It is as gentle as the morning's dew. It is non-confrontational, even respectful, in circumventing the rocks in a stream. It makes room for everything that enters its pools. It accommodates by assuming the shape of any vessel it is poured into. And it is humble, seeking always the lowest level. Yet along with - or rather because of these adaptive, yielding properties, it is ultimately irresistible; it carves canyons out of stone.

Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.

The stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness,Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through.

Whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. What is soft is strong.

Whatever is flexible and living will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

An oak and a reed were arguing about their strength. When a strong wind came up, the reed avoided being uprooted by bending and leaning with the gusts of wind. But the oak stood firm and was torn up by the roots.

That which yields is not always weak.

The Chinese say that water is the most powerful element, because it is perfectly nonresistant. It can wear away a rock, and sweep all before it.