Top 100 Quotes About Lao Tzu
#1. Your boyfriend's penis is not an awkward string of spaghetti that has to be scooped up and sucked down. The Emperor of China once asked Lao-tzu: How should I rule the kingdom? To which Lao-tzu replied: Rule the kingdom as you would cook a small fish. A really good blowjob is the same.
Chloe Thurlow
#2. Loving someone gives you courage; being loved back gives you strength. -Lao Tzu
Brandon Shire
#3. When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, There arises the recognition of evil. - Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching
Scott Westerfeld
#4. No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.
Henry Miller
#5. Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-Tzu is even more conservative, saying that if you do nothing you won't break any rules. You have to let tradition fall sometime, you have to take action, you have to eat bacon.
Christopher Moore
#6. Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is Enlightenment. - Lao-Tzu
The RZA
#7. If you care too much about what other people think, you will always be their prisoner. Lao Tzu
Avan Jogia
#8. The greatest carver does the least cutting. LAO-TZU
Phil Jackson
#9. Lao-tzu, that master of the law of reversed effort, who declared that those who justify themselves do not convince, that to know truth one must get rid of knowledge, and that nothing is more powerful and creative than emptiness - from which men shrink.
Alan W. Watts
#10. Sometimes I find myself thinking, rather wistfully, about Lao Tzu's famous dictum: 'Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.' All around me I see something very different, let us say - a number of angry dwarfs trying to grill a whale.
William Carlos Williams
#11. I was inspired to spend an entire year - my 65th year - reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu's messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.
Wayne Dyer
#12. What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.
Wayne Dyer
#13. I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people.
Leo Tolstoy
#14. The mind always wants to choose. The mind lives through choice. If you don't choose the mind drops. This is the way of Lao Tzu. How to drop the mind? - don't choose! That's why he never prescribes any meditation, because then there is no need for any meditation.
Rajneesh
#15. The primary quality that Lao Tzu seems to emobdy is humility, which is the image of water - seeking the common level of existence.
Frederick Lenz
#16. Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? LAO-TZU, Tao-te-Ching
Jon Kabat-Zinn
#17. For the Christian tradition, the heart's true home is a life rooted in the love of God. Like Lao-tzu and Dorothy both, Christian wisdom about stability points us toward the true peace that is possible when our spirits are stilled and our feet are planted in a place we know to be holy ground.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
#18. Above, in discussing the perceptive notions of Jesus, remarkable concepts of Plato or the highly introspective lessons of Gautama and Lao Tzu, it took considerable discussion to explore the meaning and relate it to How Life Works. Islam presents no such deep pool of thought to pierce.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
#19. Taoism is the way of water. The most frequent element or symbol refered to in Lao Tzu's wrtings is the symbol of water.
Frederick Lenz
#20. Nature's way is simple and easy, but men prefer what is intricate and artificial. - Lao Tzu
Dan Millman
#21. Lao Tzu
The key to growth is the introduction
of higher dimensions of consciousness
into our awareness.
Lao-Tzu
#22. To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. Lao-Tzu
Richard Koch
#24. New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings ~ Lao Tzu.
Tammara Webber
#25. The founders of the great world religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Mohammed, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever.
Geoffrey Gorer
#26. Things' essences all there endure.
Lao-Tzu
#27. Stop thinking, and end your problems.
Lao-Tzu
#28. Great acts are made up of small deeds.
Lao-Tzu
#29. Constant action overcomes cold; being still overcomes heat.
Lao-Tzu
#30. Attain complete emptiness,
Hold fast to stillness.
Understanding the ordinary:
Mind opens.
Mind opening leads to compassion,
Compassion to nobility,
Nobility to heavenliness,
Heavenliness to TAO.
TAO endures.
Your body dies.
There is no danger.
Lao-Tzu
#31. Those who speak do not know.
Those who know do not speak.
Lao-Tzu
#32. Racing and hunting madden our minds.
Lao-Tzu
#33. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds
whatever we want.
Lao-Tzu
#34. It produces them and does not claim them as its own;
Lao-Tzu
#35. What calamity is greater than no contentment,
and what flaw greater than the passion for gain.
Lao-Tzu
#36. Seeing our own smallness is called insight, honoring our own tenderness is called strenght.
Lao-Tzu
#37. The person of superior integrity
does not insist upon his integrity.
For this reason, he has integrity.
The person of inferior integrity
never loses sight of his integrity;
For this reason, he lacks integrity.
Lao-Tzu
#38. I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.
Lao-Tzu
#39. Something can be beautiful, if something else is ugly.
Someone can be good, if someone else is bad.
Lao-Tzu
#40. When one gives undivided attention to the (vital) breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a (tender) babe.
Lao-Tzu
#41. In the next age they loved them and praised them.
Lao-Tzu
#42. They shall wear elegant and ornamented robes, carry a sharp sword at their girdle, pamper themselves in eating and drinking, and have a superabundance of property and wealth; - such (princes) may be called robbers and boasters.
Lao-Tzu
#43. The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground
While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above.
Lao-Tzu
#44. Pursue that which is not meddlesome.
Lao-Tzu
#45. Whoever knows what is enough Will be happy with his fate.
Lao-Tzu
#46. Therefore, what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.
Lao-Tzu
#47. Thus it is said:
The path into light seems dark,
the path forward seems to go back,
the direct path seems long,
true power seems weak ...
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish.
Lao-Tzu
#48. Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below, and that of what is soft and weak is above.
Lao-Tzu
#49. Only those who do not use life as a reason for artificialities are intelligently valuing life.
Lao-Tzu
#50. He who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him.
Lao-Tzu
#51. Big trees grow from sprouts, tall buildings rise from mounds of earth; the loftiest heights start at your feet.
Lao-Tzu
#52. Misery and fortune share a trust.
Happiness hides in misery.
Lao-Tzu
#53. The great Tao is universal like a flood ... All creatures depend on it, and it denies nothing to anyone. It does its work, but it makes no claims for itself. It clothes and feeds all, but it does not lord it over them.
Lao-Tzu
#54. He who conquers other has force; he who conquers himself has strength.
Lao-Tzu
#55. The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent; they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.
Lao-Tzu
#56. It might appear to have been before God.
Lao-Tzu
#57. True words are not fancy. Fancy words are not true. The good do not debate. Debaters are not good.
Lao-Tzu
#58. Heaven and Earth (under its guidance) unite together and send down the sweet dew, which, without the directions of men, reaches equally everywhere as of its own accord.
Lao-Tzu
#59. Those who speak know nothing. Those who know are silent.
Cristina Garcia
#60. It is the child that sees the primordial secret of Nature and it is the child of ourselves we return to. the child within us is simple and daring enough to live the Secret.
Lao-Tzu
#61. Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, earnestly carry it into practice.
Lao-Tzu
#62. The kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing.
Lao-Tzu
#63. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are that you'll cut your hand.
Lao-Tzu
#64. An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.
Lao-Tzu
#65. From self-boasting, and therefore his merit is acknowledged;
Lao-Tzu
#66. Creating without claiming. Doing without taking credit. Guiding without interfering. This is primal virtue.
Lao-Tzu
#67. The Tao is hidden, and has no name; but it is the Tao which is skilful at imparting (to all things what they need) and making them complete.
Lao-Tzu
#68. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding
Lao-Tzu
#69. A good traveler leaves no tracks.
Lao-Tzu
#70. What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.
Lao-Tzu
#71. The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.
Lao-Tzu
#72. Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.
Lao-Tzu
#73. To lead people, you must follow behind.
Lao-Tzu
#74. Boasting of wealth and virtue brings your demise.
Lao-Tzu
#75. He is free from self- display, and therefore he shines;
Lao-Tzu
#76. Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.
Lao-Tzu
#77. Highly evolved people have their own conscience as pure law.
Lao-Tzu
#78. The first is gentleness; the second is economy; and the third is shrinking from taking precedence of others.
Lao-Tzu
#79. When its work is accomplished, it does not claim the name of having done it.
Lao-Tzu
#80. The people starve because those in authority over them devour too many taxes; that is why they starve.
Lao-Tzu
#81. He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love.
Lao-Tzu
#82. May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows?
Lao-Tzu
#83. But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid buff coat or sharp weapon.
Lao-Tzu
#84. Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
Lao-Tzu
#85. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly.
Lao-Tzu
#86. The sage shuns excess, shuns grandiosity, shuns arrogance.
Lao-Tzu
#87. There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.
Lao-Tzu
#88. 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?
Lao-Tzu
#89. Know glory but cleave to humiliation.
Lao-Tzu
#90. Stop trying to leave, and you shall arrive; stop seeking, and you shall see; stop running away, and you shall be found.
Lao-Tzu
#91. To lead the people, walk behind them.
Lao-Tzu
#92. What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?
Lao-Tzu
#93. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things.
Lao-Tzu
#94. Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?
Lao-Tzu
#95. Your own positive future begins in this moment. All you have is right now. Every goal is possible from here.
Lao-Tzu
#96. The moral man does something,
and when no one responds
he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
Lao-Tzu
#97. When the Great Tao (Way or Method) ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue.
Lao-Tzu
#98. Therefore the sages got their knowledge without travelling;
Lao-Tzu
#99. The skilful closer needs no bolts or bars, while to open what he has shut will be impossible;
Lao-Tzu
#100. Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.
Lao-Tzu
