Laozi Quotes

Can you let go of words and ideas, attitudes and expectations? If so, then the Tao will loom into view.

Those who boast are not respected.

When everyone in the world sees beauty, then ugly exists.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, the less self reliant people will be.

Knowledge of the eternal is all-embracing. To be all-embracing leads to righteousness, which is majestic.

If you tell me, I will listen. If you show me, I will see. If you let me experience, I will learn!

When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises.

In work, do what you enjoy.

Freedom from desire leads to inner peace.

If good happens, good; if bad happens, good.

Empty your mind of all thoughts.

Because he (the Sage) opposes no one, no one in the world can oppose him.

True words seem false.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

Those who know it do not speak about it. Those who speak about it do not know it.

...the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

The river and the sea can be kings of a hundred valleys, because they lie below them.

Develop the strength of a man, but live as gently as a woman

Reputation should be neither sought nor avoided.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

Conquering others requires force. Conquering oneself requires strength

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

Countless words count less than the silent balance between yin and yang

Make the small big and the few many.

The net of heaven is very wide in its meshes, and yet it misses nothing.

First and last follow each other.

Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.

How do I become still? By flowing with the stream.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.

The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.

Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

The subtlest of subtleties, this is the gateway to all mysteries.

Great indeed is the sublimity of the creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.

Stop leaving and you will arrive, Stop searching and you will see, Stop running away and you will be found.

No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things from within and unconsciously, and at last become one with heaven and earth.

The real art of governing consists, so far as possible, in doing nothing.

A good runner leaves no footprints.

The sage avoids extremity, excess, and extravagance.

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

Not praising the deserving prevents envy.

The best of all teachers is the one who helps people so that eventually they don't need him.

What has no substance can penetrate what has no opening.

All things arise in unison. Thereby we see their return.

Take [preventive] action before things happen. Establish order before disorder has begun.

Whatever is flexible and living will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

The softest of stuff in the world, penetrates quickly the hardest, insubstantial, it enters where there is no room.

The sage acts by doing nothing.

By following this simple path, you become extraordinary, unfathomable, a being of profound cosmic subtlety. You outlive time and space by realizing the subtle truth of the universe.

What resists, persists.