Lao Tzu Quotes

I don't want to be all power and muscle.

O grant me, Heaven, a middle state, Neither too humble nor too great; More than enough, for nature's ends, With something left to treat my friends.

The superior man is never in anyone's way.

ALL things in Nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing. They fulfil their functions and make no claim.

Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.

With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour.

All things are nourished together without their injuring one another. The courses of the seasons, and of the sun and moon, are pursued without any collision among them. The smaller energies are like river currents; the greater energies are seen in mighty transformations. It is this which makes heaven and earth so great.

All goes back to the earth, and so I do not desire pride of excess or power, but the contentments made by men who have had little: the fisherman's silence receiving the river's grace, the gardener's musing on rows.

The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

I don't pretend to anything more than harmony.

Simplicity is the great friend to nature, and if I would be proud of anything in this silly world, it should be of this honest alliance.

The feminine in the man is the sugar in the whisky. The masculine in the woman is the yeast in the bread. Without these ingredients the result is flat, without tang or flavor.

Those who have tried meekness know the importance of being important.

Purity and stillness give the correct law to all under heaven.

Don't swim against the current. Stay in the river, become the river; and the river is already going to the sea. This is the great teaching.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.

Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart.

Heaven is eternal and Earth everlasting. They can be eternal and everlasting because they do not exist for themselves, And for this reason can exist forever.

The most essential point is lowliness.

I don't really want people looking to me for inspiration. I just want to be a sign along the way that points toward Heaven.

True humility is not in the absence of confidence but strength restrained.

Maybe at the same time as I'm more confident today, I'm also more humble.

And yet, just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life. One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order to keep on a straight course.

Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.