Lao Tzu Quotes

The Way that can be walked is not the eternal Way.

Some things, you know, if you say them, it makes them not true?

Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down".

Existence is illusory and it is eternal.

Words spoken about the Way have no taste. When looked at, there's not enough to see. When listened to, there's not enough to hear. When used, it is never exhausted.

The Way is ever nameless.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

Realize all this as illusion, realize that within the illusion is the Real.

You have to know the reality and the reality is that we are eternal.

An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains; waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.

Whatever you might say the object "is", well it is not.

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.

Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world. Without looking out your window, you can see the essence of the Tao. The more you know, the less you understand. The Master arrives without leaving, sees the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing.

Form and formless are intertwined in this world. The formless can only be expressed in form and form can only be thought with the formless.

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.

Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.

The Tao is infinite, eternal. Why is it eternal? It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings. The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them. Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.

I regard any behavior we indulge in as a game. The soul is beyond not only three-dimensional space but beyond the illusion of linear time. Any method we use to move through three- or four- dimensional space is a game. It doesn't matter how serious we take it, or how serious its consequences are.

Everything is true and not true about everything. That’s one thing I’ve learned.

You can only photograph a fragment of the here and now. The photograph presents the world as object; language, the world as idea.

Experience is always larger than language.

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

As Lao Tzu says, "The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao".

If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning!

Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.