The Tao Quotes

The Tao Quote of the day

The more you know the less you talk.

If you search everywhere, yet cannot find what you are seeking, it is because what you seek is already in your possession.

Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know.

Tao loves and nourishes all things, but does not dominate it over them.

The Tao is told is not the Tao.

The master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.

I am good to people who are good. I am also good to people who are not good. Because Virtue is goodness.

Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.

Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone.

When the ancient Masters said, "If you want to be given everything, give everything up," they weren't using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

The Tao principle is what happens of itself.

The Tao never acts with force, yet there is nothing that it can not do.

When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.

In caring for others and serving heaven, There is nothing like using restraint.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery, caught in the desire, you see only the manifestations.

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way.

Wisest is he who knows what he does not know.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

When you accurately perceive the fluidity of things, you can also begin to perceive the constancy behind them: the creative, transformative, boundless, immutable Tao.

All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.

Those who follow the Tao are of clear mind. They do not load their mind with anxieties and are flexible in their adjustment to external conditions.

The heart that gives, gathers.

Try to change it and you will ruin it. Try to hold it and you will lose it.

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

If you want to know me, look inside your heart.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

When there is no desire, all things are at peace

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

He who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm.

The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of all things.

To understand the limitation of things, desire them.

Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.

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

Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.

To find the Tao, there is nowhere you need to search. If it is not inside you, it is not the Tao.

Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity.

When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong.

Only the intelligent knows how to identify all things as one. . . . When one is at ease with himself, one is near Tao. This is to let Nature take its own course.

The more you know the less you understand.

No disaster is worse than being discontented.

The Tao is unpredictable to those that live according to plans. Only those who have no agenda are in harmony with the Tao.

Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of the Tao. That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.