Top 100 Zhuangzi Quotes
#1. Written by the ancient Chinese philosopher of the same name, the 'Zhuangzi' is one long perplexing puzzle of a rambling collection of enigmatic short stories. It's a strange feeling to laugh at a joke written by someone in the 4th century B.C.
Patrick Stump
#2. Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly ...
Zhuangzi
#3. Slingerland explains that Chinese philosophers like Confucius, Lao Tse, Zhuangzi, and a few others were concerned with accessing a state called Wu-Wei, pronounced "ooh-way." This is a state of spontaneous flow.
Anonymous
#4. Calculate what man knows and it cannot compare to what he doesn't know. Calculate the time he is alive and it cannot compare to the time before he was born. Yet man takes something so small and tries to exhaust the dimensions of something so large!
Zhuangzi
#5. When deeds and words are in accord, the whole world is transformed.
Zhuangzi
#6. So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow.
Zhuangzi
#7. Good fortune is as light as a feather, but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of it's way.
Zhuangzi
#8. Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!
Zhuangzi
#9. The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.
Zhuangzi
#10. Heaven is like an egg, and the earth is like the yolk of the egg.
Zhuangzi
#11. To a mind that is still, the entire universe surrenders.
Zhuangzi
#12. The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?
Zhuangzi
#13. Compare birth with death, compare death with life; compare what is possible with what is not possible and compare what is not possible with what is possible; because there is, there is not, and because there is not, there is.
Zhuangzi
#14. Take care of your body, then the rest will automatically become stronger.
Zhuangzi
#15. He who knows the activities of Nature lives according to Nature.
Zhuangzi
#16. Human life is limited, but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in pursuit of the limitless is fatal; and to presume that one really knows is fatal indeed!
Zhuangzi
#17. Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise. By not being wise you will become wise later.
Zhuangzi
#18. You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless.
Zhuangzi
#19. Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
Zhuangzi
#20. And how do I know that the hate of death is not like a man who has lost his home when young and does not know where his home is to return to?
Zhuangzi
#21. Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.
Zhuangzi
#22. Eyes that are blind have no way to tell the loveliness of faces and features; eyes with no pupils have no way to tell the beauty of colored and embroidered silks.
Zhuangzi
#23. 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.
Zhuangzi
#24. A good completion takes a long time; a bad completion cannot be changed later.
Zhuangzi
#25. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul.
Zhuangzi
#26. A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.
Zhuangzi
#27. In an archery contest, when the stakes are earthenware tiles a contestant shoots with skill. When the stakes are belt buckles he becomes hesitant, and if the stakes are pure gold he becomes nervous and confused. There is no difference as to his skil.
Zhuangzi
#28. Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their TAO. But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectical skill that his may be made clear. The true sage will have none of these.
Zhuangzi
#29. Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way, and forget that the going is easy.
Zhuangzi
#30. You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, the creature of a season.
Zhuangzi
#31. Don't you know about the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that they were incapable of stopping it? Such was the high opinion it had of its talents.
Zhuangzi
#32. Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.
Zhuangzi
#33. The Spirit Tower has its guardian, but unless it understands who its guardian is, it cannot be guarded.
Zhuangzi
#34. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things.
Zhuangzi
#35. Things joined by profit, when pressed by misfortune and danger, will cast each other aside.
Zhuangzi
#36. The Portal of God is nonexistence. All things sprang from nonexistence. Existence could not make existence existence. It must have proceeded from nonexistence, and nonexistence and nothing are one. Herein is the abiding place of the sage.
Zhuangzi
#37. Verily God does not reward man for what he does, but for what he is.
Zhuangzi
#38. When men do not forget what can be forgotten but forget what cannot be forgotten - that may be called true forgetting.
Zhuangzi
#39. Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
Zhuangzi
#40. The hundred parts of the body are all complete in their places. Which should one prefer? Do you like them all equally? Are they all servants? Are they unable to control one another and need a ruler? Or do they become rulers and servants in turn? Is there any true ruler other than themselves?
Zhuangzi
#41. The World is Large - Its beauty indescrible.
Zhuangzi
#42. The sound of water says what I think.
Zhuangzi
#43. The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.
Zhuangzi
#44. Fish live in water. Men die in it.Nature is diverse, and not all tastes are the same.
Zhuangzi
#45. Moreover, I have heard that those who are fond of praising men to their faces are also fond of damning them behind their backs.
Zhuangzi
#47. So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar.
Zhuangzi
#48. Ah," said Lien Shu, "it is true that a blind person cannot appreciate beautiful patterns and forms, and the deaf cannot appreciate the music of bells and drums. Yet blindness and deafness do not only afflict people physically, they also exist in the minds and attitudes of people.
Zhuangzi
#49. There is the globe,
The foundation of my bodily existence.
It wears me out with work and duties,
It gives me rest in old age,
It gives me peace in death.
For the on who supplied me with what I needed in life
Will also give me what I need in death.
Zhuangzi
#50. The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.
Zhuangzi
#51. Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all.
Zhuangzi
#52. All existing things are really one. We regard those that are beautiful and rare as valuable, and those that are ugly as foul and rotten The foul and rotten may come to be transformed into what is rare and valuable, and the rare and valuable into what is foul and rotten.
Zhuangzi
#53. But a gentleman may embrace a doctrine without necessarily wearing the garb that goes with it, and he may wear the garb without necessarily comprehending the doctrine.
Zhuangzi
#54. He who has mastered the true nature of life does not labor over what life cannot do. He who has mastered the true nature of fate does not labor over what knowledge cannot change.
Zhuangzi
#55. You can't discuss the ocean with a well frog - he's limited by the space he lives in. You can't discuss ice with a summer insect - he's bound to a single season.
Zhuangzi
#56. Why don't you try wandering with me to the Palace of Not-Even-Anything
Zhuangzi
#57. If one is true to one's inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?
Zhuangzi
#58. True men ... are strong willed, have dignity in their demeanor, serenity in their expression. They are cool like autumn, warm like spring. Their passions arise like the four seasons, in harmony with the ten thousand creatures, and no one knows their limits.
Zhuangzi
#59. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream.
Zhuangzi
#60. Man may rest in the eternal fitness; he may abide in the everlasting; and roam from the beginning to the end of all creation. He may bring his nature to a condition of ONE, he may nourish his strength; he may harmonise his virtue, and so put himself into partnership with God.
Zhuangzi
#61. When a hideous man becomes a father
And a son is born to him
In the middle of the night
He trembles and lights a lamp
And runs to look in anguish
On that child's face
To see who he resembles.
Zhuangzi
#62. The saying goes, 'The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.' This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up.
Zhuangzi
#63. When I talk about having good hearing, I don't mean just listening, but listening to yourself. When I talk about good eyesight, I don't mean just looking, but looking at yourself.
Zhuangzi
#64. It is only when the formed learns from the unformed that there is understanding.
Zhuangzi
#65. He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.
Zhuangzi
#66. When you're dreaming, you don't know it's a dream. You might even interpret a dream in your dream - and then wake up and realize it was all a dream. Perhaps a great awakening will reveal this to be a dream as well.
Zhuangzi
#67. Although things seem to be sometimes going up and sometimes descending, sometimes slipping away, nevertheless there is a reality, the same today as in the past. It does not change, for nothing can affect it. Could we not say it is one great harmony? So why shouldn't we ask about it ...
Zhuangzi
#68. Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.
Zhuangzi
#69. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down.
Zhuangzi
#70. People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?
Zhuangzi
#71. When a man does not dwell in self, then things will of themselves reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo.
Zhuangzi
#72. Now you, Sir, have a large tree, and you don't know how to use it, so why not plant it in the middle of nowhere, where you can go to wander or fall asleep under its shade? No axe under Heaven will attack it, nor shorten its days, for something which is useless will never be disturbed.
Zhuangzi
#73. The enlightened attention rejects nothing nor welcomes anything-like a mirror it responds equally to all.
Zhuangzi
#74. 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.
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#75. We can't expect a blind man to appreciate beautiful patterns or a deaf man to listen to bells and drums. And blindness and deafness are not confined to the body alone - the understanding has them, too.
Zhuangzi
#76. When you are identified with the One, all things will be complete to you.
Zhuangzi
#77. 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.
Zhuangzi
#78. When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. When the heart is right, "for" and "against" are forgotten. No drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions: Then your affairs are under control. You are a free man.
Zhuangzi
#79. You should find the same joy in one condition as in the other and thereby be free of care, that is all. But now, when the things that happened along take their leave, you cease to be joyful. From this point of view, though you have joy, it will always be fated for destruction.
Zhuangzi
#80. Let your mind wander in the pure and simple. Be one with the infinite. Let all things take their course.
Zhuangzi
#81. Today, I went to sleep under a plum tree. There, I dreamed I was a butterfly, flying so pleasently. Then, I fell asleep, and the dream ended. Now- I have to ask myself - am I Zhuang Zi who dreamed of a butterfly? Or am I that butterfly, dreaming I am Zhuang Zi?
Zhuangzi
#82. Thus, those who say they would have right without its correlate, wrong; or good government without its correlate, misrule, do not apprehend the great principles of the universe, nor the nature of all creation.
Zhuangzi
#83. One whose inner being is fixed upon such greatness emits a Heavenly glow. Even though he has this Heavenly glow, others will see him as just a man. Someone who has reached this point will begin to be consistent.
Zhuangzi
#84. Men all pay homage to what understanding understands, but no one understands enough to rely upon what understanding does not understand and thereby come to understand.
Zhuangzi
#85. Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.
Zhuangzi
#86. Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.
Zhuangzi
#87. Not to understand is profound; to understand is shallow. Not to understand is to be on the inside; to understand is to be on the outside.
Zhuangzi
#88. Am I a human dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a human?
Zhuangzi
#89. Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.
Zhuangzi
#90. The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind - that is the reason he is still.
Zhuangzi
#91. Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.
Zhuangzi
#92. Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.
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#93. By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.
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#94. There is danger for the eye in seeing too clearly, danger for the ear in hearing too sharply and danger to the heart from caring too greatly.
Zhuangzi
#95. Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger.
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#96. Each one's destiny cannot be altered.
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#97. You will always find an answer in the sound of water.
Zhuangzi
#98. For we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Zhuangzi
#99. Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in word or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence Tao is apprehended.
Zhuangzi
#100. True depth of understanding is wide and steady,
Shallow understanding is lazy and wandering,
Words of wisdom are precise and clear
Zhuangzi
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