The Tao Quotes

No disaster is worse than being discontented.

The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?

If you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.

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

(The Tao) is always present and always available. . . . If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most ordinary things.

The Tao is near and people seek it far away.

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

Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet.

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

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

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

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.

You are still guided by your expectations.

Observe how endings become beginnings.

Enjoy the simple, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work.

Remember that the more you know, the less you fear.

The man of knowledge acquires something new everyday, and the man of Tao lets go of something new every day.

It (Tao) is eternally without desire. So, it can be called small. All things return to it, although it does not make itself their ruler. So, it can be called great.

Someone who seeks the Way doesn't look beyond himself.

Worlds and particles, bodies and beings, time and space: All are transient expressions of the Tao.

When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.

When you do the things that you can do, you will find a way.

A Fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.

The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.

A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.

The more you know, the less you carry

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

From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.

Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded.

But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path?

Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.

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.

We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening

Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

The farther you go, the less you know.

The Tao is like a well; used but never used up.

It means that Tao doesn't force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done.

Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with.

When you are one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly.

The one who is conscious (in Tao) can't speak. The one who can speak is not conscious (centered in Tao)

He who is attached to things will suffer much.

For one gains by losing And loses by gaining.

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.

If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.

The Tao has no place for pettiness, and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said, rectify yourself and be done.

The tao is made because we walk it,things become what they are called.

Going forward seems like retreat.