Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Hold on to the ancient Way to master the present, and to learn the distant beginning.

Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time' is to say 'I don't want to.'

Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results.

Do nothing, and leave nothing undone. ["Doing nothing" is what happens when the doer disappears, it isn't something that one does or chooses not to do.]

A tree that is unbending, is easily broken.

There was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.