Lao Tzu Quotes

The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.

What's the greater risk? Letting go of what people think - or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

When you really understand who you are, it enables you to fight and believe.

Vanity destroys your work. That's the one thing you have to let go of as an actor. I don't care how sexy or beautiful any woman is. At the end of the day, she has to take her makeup off. At the end of the day, she's more than just pretty.

Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities. Opportunities to...be, and decide, Who You Really Are.

As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun.

Taking back our light from those we’ve projected it onto opens the door to an unimaginable future.

I have one rule I live by: Only do what you can do. That neans you're never looking outside for what's popular; you're always looking inside for what's true.

I find that I'm not as worried anymore about what other people think. That's a comfortable place to be. And I'm starting to let go of the feeling that I need to push myself to do things I don't want to do - an impulse that has always been linked to the feeling that I'm not enough.

Others can inspire you, but ultimately the only thing that empowers you is what lies within you and learning how to better utilize what you’ve been given.

May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.

...and that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.

I know unless I'm true to myself I couldn't be happy. Too much emphasis is placed today on externals and too little on character.

Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.

I think the most clear, direct way to empowerment is to really know yourself and to really use your voice and to not be afraid of other people's reactions.

The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.

The ego doesn't know that the source of all energy is within you, so it seeks it outside.

When you realize no one else on this earth can be like you... that no other soul may know the beauty, sorrow, light and darkness you alone are given to see... then you will, at last, be the fearless individual your Heart of hearts has called you to be.

You empower what you fight.You withdraw power from what you release.

There have been many people for whom limitations, failure, loss, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility and compassion. It made them more real.

There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.

Find yourself for courage and confidence are as easy as breathing to the person who really knows who he is.

I think some people who go into public life, if they go in needing the applause of thousands, they're never going to work out successfully in the end, because they don't know who they are apart from the crowds.

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.