Lao Tzu Quotes

Be virtuous and you will be vicious.

It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness to be truly base.

You can be brilliant in some ways and despicable in others. You can be a clean, upright, moral individual in your private life who never swears, treats women with respect, and speaks highly of duty and honor - and go out every day and dedicate yourself to a cause that makes the world worse.

Creating without claiming, Doing without taking credit, Guiding without interfering, This is Primal Virtue.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

History teaches us virtue, but nature never ceases to teachh us vice.

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.

A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Being humble matters.

God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones.

All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.

Partly, I like a bad reputation. But I also want a reputation of being a good person.

I'm a good girl because I really believe in love, integrity, and respect. I'm a bad girl because I like to tease.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.

What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.

Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.

Humility is of central importance; I think it's an underappreciated virtue in the contemporary discussion of law and politics.

People don't just want to be rich and successful, they want to be good.