Zhuangzi Quotes

When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.

Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.

Androgyny is not trying to manage the relationship between the opposites; it is simply flowing between them.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

At the still point, there the dance is.

The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn't take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the center.

All the things and events we usually consider as irreconcilable, such as cause and effect, past and future, subject and object, are actually just like the crest and trough of a single wave, a single vibration. For a wave, although itself a single event, only expresses itself through the opposites of crest and trough, high point and low point. For that very reason, the reality is not found in the crest nor the trough alone, but in their unity.

As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite--variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite--energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not.

When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.

My own words are not the medicine, but a prescription; not the destination, but a map to help you reach it. When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth. Don't analyze the Tao. Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly, with your whole harmonious being.

And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens, Are singing the selfsame strain.

The great Way is all-pervading. It reaches to the left and to the right. All things depend on it with their existence. Still it demands no obedience.

Child and serpent, star and stone — all one.

A holy person is someone who is whole; who has, as it were, reconciled his opposites.

At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.

The rose and thorn, the treasure and dragon, joy and sorrow, all mingle into one.

Virtue is like health: the harmony of the whole man.

Tao is the source of both fullness and emptiness. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.

If a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new.

The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to Two. Two gives birth to Three. Three gives birth to all things. All things have their backs to the female and stand facing the male. When male and female combine, all things achieve harmony. Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.

THE TECHNIQUES OF the Art of Peace are neither fast nor slow, nor are they inside or outside.. They transcend time and space.

He who regards all things as one is a companion of Nature.

All things are in all.

All concord's born of contraries.