Lao Tzu Quotes

There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.

IF YOUR OPPONENT strikes with fire, counter with water, becoming completely fluid and free-flowing. Water, by its nature, never collides with or breaks against anything. On the contrary, it swallows up any attack harmlessly.

Water is the softest of all things, yet it is the most powerful. The ocean patiently allows all things to flow into it. It is always flexible. The Tao is not about grasping, but allowing, like water.

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

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice. Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow. Evil cannot enter his heart. Because he has given up helping, he is people's greatest help. True words seem paradoxical.

Be like water, my friend.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world. Through this I know the advantage of taking no action.

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

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.

Study water. Try to grab a hold of water, and it will always elude you. You just have to let yourself be in it. It's soft, and it overcomes anything that's hard. Put the hardest substance - say, titanium - out there, and let water flow over it. Eventually, patiently, peacefully, the water will just wear it away. Also, water will enter anywhere - through any opening at all. So, let yourself be like that. God is in nature, everywhere and always. And we have so much to learn.

Somebody's got to tell all the people to be like the water

That which offers no resistance can enter where there is no space.

Be as fluid as water, do not give your enemies anything solid to atack

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

The weak overcomes the strong. The soft overcomes the hard. Everybody in the world knows this, still nobody makes use of it.

Nothing on earth is so weak and yielding as water, but for breaking down the firm and strong it has no equal.

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.

A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.

He sometimes behaves like water, flowing around the obstacles he encounters.

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.

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about - the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire, it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you?

Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.

You have to be willing - you have strong ideas, you have strong views, but you have to be willing also to look at experience.