Lao Tzu Quotes

Be grateful as your deeds become less and less associated with your name, as your feet ever more lightly tread the earth.

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 It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace.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.

Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.

I always stay humble. I don't act funny towards nobody.

My motto is never to hold on to anything. I accept and then let go: not just the negatives, but the praise, too. Or it'll get to my head.

I am someone without an ego.

Giving birth and nourishing, Bearing yet not possessing, Working yet not taking credit, Leading yet not dominating, This is the Primal Virtue.

The truest self-respect is not to think of self.

God looks with favor at pure, not full, hands.

Receive the gifts of fortune without pride, and part with them without reluctance.

All goes back to the earth, and so I do not desire pride of excess or power, but the contentments made by men who have had little: the fisherman's silence receiving the river's grace, the gardener's musing on rows.

The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Simplicity is the great friend to nature, and if I would be proud of anything in this silly world, it should be of this honest alliance.

Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won't be any thieves. If these three aren't enough, just stay at the center of the circle and let all things take their course.

I'm a random guy. I shake a hand and make a friend. I don't do egotistical things.

Just be nice to me while I am doing the scene; that is all. I don't want big cars, I don't want big hotel rooms.

Find joy and solace in the simple, and cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.

Humility is really important because it keeps you fresh and new.

Nothing has been given to me.

An actor should always let humility outweigh ambition.

I think it's important to come from a humble place.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

True humility is contentment.