Top 100 Quotes About Tao
#1. Our western mind lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, not even a name for "the union of opposites through the middle path", that most fundamental item of inward experience which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao.
Carl Jung
#2. From now back to antiquity, its (Tao's) name has not been lost. Thereby, see the origin of all.
Laozi
#3. When the highest type of men hear Tao,
They diligently practice it.
When the average type of men hear Tao,
They half believe in it.
When the lowest type of men hear Tao,
They laugh heartily at it.
Without the laugh, there is no Tao
Lao-Tzu
#4. 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.
Benjamin Hoff
#5. The Tao belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it's like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?
Alan Watts
#6. The critics often invent authors; they select two dissimilar works - the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, say - attribute them to the same writer and then determine most scrupulously the psychology of this interesting homme de lettres ...
Jorge Luis Borges
#7. Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not.
Laozi
#8. Unconscious of the existence of Tao, beings live supposing themselves to be separate from the universal intelligence, supposing themselves to be powerful or to be weak, thinking that they live their lives and die their deaths.
Frederick Lenz
#9. A wall is a defense of a country that values inaction. But a wall imprisons the people of a country as much as it protects them. That's why Balthasar had us go this way. He wanted me to see the error in the Tao. One can't be free without action.
Christopher Moore
#10. Who is a rebellious person? The rebellious person is one who does not bother about the society at all. He simply lives through his innermost core; he is one who follows his Tao.
Osho
#11. Darkness, whether in mood or in night, is natural. So if we flow with the black bile of melancholia and endure the terrible darkness of depression, eventually we will break through into the light of joy. This is the Tao (the Way) of darkness or depression
this is the Mystery of its evolution.
Arnold Mindell
#12. Change,connectivity,and learning to live well with others and with Nature and her ways will be the features of the world when seen through the eye of Tao.
Ilchi Lee
#13. The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole. His constant practice is humility. He doesn't glitter like a jewel but lets himself be shaped by the Tao, as rugged and common as a stone.
Laozi
#14. The sage gives more than he takes;
how can he do this?
because he has the richness of Tao
Lao-Tzu
#15. The tao is made because we walk it,things become what they are called.
Zhuangzi
#16. Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.
Laozi
#17. Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.
Laozi
#18. Thus it was that when faith (in the Tao) was deficient (in the rulers) a want of faith in them ensued (in the people).
Lao-Tzu
#19. The first practice is the practice of undiscriminating virtue: take care of those who are deserving; also, and equally, take care of those who are not. When you extend your virtue in all directions without discriminating, you feet are firmly planted on the path that returns to the Tao.
Laozi
#20. The Tao of the sage is work without effort.
Laozi
#21. I first emailed Tao Lin a story I wrote about the experience of losing my virginity sometime in April 2011. He didn't respond until it was later published on Thought Catalog, after which he sent me an email that said something very similar to, "I enjoyed reading this on Thought Catalog. Good job."
Marie Calloway
#22. The Tao is in all things, in their divisions and their fullness. What I dislike about divisions is that they multiply, and what i dislike about multiplication is that it makes people want to hold fast to it. So people go out and forget to return, seeing little more than ghosts.
Zhuangzi
#23. When I feel off, I read the 'Tao Te Ching' to get my equilibrium right. I started reading it in the eleventh grade.
Eddie Huang
#24. (So), he who has the attributes (of the Tao) regards (only) the conditions of the engagement, while he who has not those attributes regards only the conditions favourable to himself.
Lao-Tzu
#26. 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.
Laozi
#27. My own words are not the medicine, but a prescription; not the destination, but a map to help you reach it. When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth. Don't analyze the Tao. Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly, with your whole harmonious being.
Laozi
#28. Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present.
Lao-Tzu
#29. If Tao Lin had been born to Gary Shteyngart's parents and spent his early twenties slaving for pageviews at NewYorker, he would have written something like this, the Bright Lights, Big City of the click-here-now generation.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus
#31. 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
#32. A person who prematurely believes that they comprehend the Tao sees only its external luster, and this is the beginning of delusion.
Lao-Tzu
#33. The Tao's principle is spontaneity.
Laozi
#34. Those who of old were good practicers of Tao did not use it to make people bright, but rather used it to make them simple.
Laozi
#35. The Tao which you know is not the eternal Tao
Laozi
#36. Why is the tao so valuable? Because it is everywhere, and everyone can use it. This is why those who seek will find, And those who reform will be forgiven; Why the good will be rewarded, And the thief who is cunning will escape.
Laozi
#37. When men lost their understanding of the Tao, intelligence came along, bringing hypocrisy with it.
Lao-Tzu
#38. The attitude of Tao is of cooperation, not conflict. The attitude of Tao is not to be against nature but to be with it, to allow nature, to let it have its way, to cooperate with it, to go with it. The attitude of Tao is of great relaxation.
Osho
#39. What man has more than enough and gives it to the world? Only the man of Tao.
Laozi
#40. Worlds and particles, bodies and beings, time and space: All are transient expressions of the Tao.
Laozi
#41. Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you relinquish the notions of male and female, short and long, life and death? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic? If so, you can reach the heart of the Integral Oneness.
Laozi
#42. Perhaps the most significant thing George Lucas did in creating 'Star Wars' was to fictionalize the Tao - to spark a universe where we can talk about the Force in objective terms and show it in direct action.
Matthew Stover
#43. The Tao is near and people seek it far away.
Mencius
#44. The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing, answers without speaking a word, arrives without being summoned, accomplishes without a plan. Its net covers the whole universe. And though its meshes are wide, it doesn't let a thing slip through.
Laozi
#45. Physicists have yet to find anything capable of exceeding our known speed of light. The Tao cannot be named, and so I say there is one thing that out-paces all things: we call it "thought." I can fill a room a with light before I'm anywhere near the switch.
Laurie Perez
#46. 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.
Zhuangzi
#47. Do you think that you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear. Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation ... The Tao is clear and simple, and it doesn't avoid the world.
Laozi
#48. Tao loves and nourishes all things, but does not dominate it over them.
Laozi
#49. Yielding is the way of the Tao.
Laozi
#50. 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
#51. The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet ...
Laozi
#52. Acting without design, occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings; this is the method of Tao.
Laozi
#53. One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't tell you who they were traveling with, and they're not very reliable about things that happened to them.
Paul Theroux
#54. When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.
Zhuangzi
#55. Possessed of the Tao, he endures long; and to the end of his bodily life, is exempt from all danger of decay.
Lao-Tzu
#56. I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.
Jim Butcher
#57. And if you don't know Which to Do Of all the things in front of you, Then what you'll have when you are through Is just a mess without a clue... - Winnie the Pooh in The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
Iggy Fernandez
#58. Lao Tsu says the way of life is ancient, timeless. It is existence which he calls the Tao - a mysterious source, beyond understanding, and all of us are a reflection, if not that source of life ourselves.
Frederick Lenz
#59. It is really impossible to appreciate what is meant by the Tao without becoming, in a rather special sense, stupid.
Alan W. Watts
#60. When you accurately perceive the fluidity of things, you can also begin to perceive the constancy behind them: the creative, transformative, boundless, immutable Tao.
Laozi
#61. The path of Tao is not that of sudden enlightenment. It is not like Zen. Zen is sudden enlightenment, Tao is gradual growth.
Osho
#62. A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web "God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father," but it can be known only as love.
Joan Z. Borysenko
#63. Tao is so important because it is connected to all the life forms - it's related to the whole universe. Nobody can say, "Tao has nothing to do with me. Why should I try to understand it?" because actually, Tao has everything to do with us.
Henry Chang
#64. If you persist in trying To attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift!) If you persist in making effort To obtain what effort cannot get; If you persist in reasoning About what cannot be understood, You will be destroyed By the very thing you seek.
Thomas Merton
#65. If this seems complex, the reason is because Tao is both simple and complex. It is complex when we try to understand it, and simple when we allow ourselves to experience it.
Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal
#66. When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body's intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born.
Laozi
#67. When the highest type of people hear Tao (Truth), they diligently practice it. When the average type of people hear Tao, they half believe in it. When the lowest type of people hear Tao, they laugh at it. If they did not laugh, it would not be Tao.
Laozi
#68. The sage is sick of being sick (Tao Te Ching)
Robert Baohm
#69. (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.
Laozi
#70. That which one can deviate from is not the true Tao.
Ken Wilber
#71. There's a source, there's a perennial source from which all things come forth. We call it the Godhead, Nirvana, the Tao, enlightenment. It's big; it's bright; it's perfect, as are all of its children, as are we.
Frederick Lenz
#72. I'm a disciple of the Tao of Peter Parker, obviously,
Jim Butcher
#73. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.
Laozi
#74. It would be misleading to say, 'I believe in the Force,' in the same sense that it would be misleading to say, 'I believe in the sun.' Give it whatever name you like - the Force, the Tao, the Holy Spirit, the Universal Mind - I see it in action everywhere I look, both in the world and in myself.
Matthew Stover
#75. Tao 'is' before words
and before deeds
Lao-Tzu
#76. With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation.
Bret Easton Ellis
#77. True zazen is surrendering every moment. But surrendering to what? It really does not matter what we call it: God or the Tao or the Dharma or the Buddha or our true nature ... It is the act of letting go, of surrendering, that matters. The very act of letting go opens us up completely.
Dennis Merzel
#78. If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.
Laozi
#79. When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.
Lu Jun Hong
#80. Many sections are taken up with political discussions and how the way of the ruler, the merchant, the householder, and the army interact with the Tao.
Frederick Lenz
#81. If you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.
Laozi
#82. Tao can be used by anybody, but it does not beling to anyone. It is just like air; everyone can breathe the air, but no one can claim ownership of the air.
Henry Chang
#83. 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.
Zhuangzi
#84. The grace of Tao
and divine nature (Te)
are not ordered
but eternal spontaneous
action of the One
Lao-Tzu
#85. Every day, mindful practice. When the mind is disciplined then the Way can work for us. Otherwise, all we do is talk of Tao; everything is just words; and the world will know us as its one great fool.
Li Ching-Yuen
#86. The scholar gains every day; the man of Tao loses every day.
Laozi
#87. The great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao.
Laozi
#88. The Tao of Jen was very much the Tao of hiding everything that didn't look good. The Tao of Jen is wearing a cocktail dress with underwear with holes in it. The Tao of Jen is all style and no substance.
Jen Lancaster
#89. We may be floating on Tao, but there is nothing wrong with steering. If Tao is like a river, it is certainly good to know where the rocks are.
Ming-Dao Deng
#90. (Those who) possessed in highest degree the attributes (of the Tao) did not (seek) to show them, and therefore they possessed them (in fullest measure).
Lao-Tzu
#91. I don't own a scale, and Tao banned the word 'fat' from our house. If we eat too much, we say, 'I feel clogged up.'
Olivia Wilde
#92. The spectrum of possibilities is vast and our souls long to incorporate as many as they can... We are in a constant process of learning how to think, behave, or act understanding the manifestations of Tao, the manifestation of Qi within us.
Natasa Nuit Pantovic
#93. To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent - herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients.
Zhuangzi
#94. To find the Tao, there is nowhere you need to search. If it is not inside you, it is not the Tao.
Confucius
#95. Too much thinking causes confusion and anxiety
better to stick with the simplicity of Tao
Lao-Tzu
#96. As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance.
Laozi
#97. Marian Head is a true student of Tao. Her insightful and persuasive 'Wu-Wei' approaches for personal transformation reach our hearts with open invitation to join the 'soft' revolution and harmonious agreement for all.
Chungliang Al Huang
#98. If I were suddenly to become known, and (put into a position to) conduct (a government) according to the Great Tao, what I should be most afraid of would be a boastful display.
Lao-Tzu
#99. The Tao is told is not the Tao.
Laozi
#100. In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
Laozi
