The great Way is all-pervading. It reaches to the left and to the right. All things depend on it with their existence. Still it demands no obedience.

Love the whole world as if it were your self; then you will truly care for all things.

The reason why rivers and seas are able to be lords over a hundred mountain streams, is that they know how to keep below them. That is why they are able to reign over all the mountain streams.

Of all things, none does not revere the Way and honor virtue. Reverence of the Way and honoring virtue were not demanded of them, but it is in their nature.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

When the government is quite unobtrusive, people are indeed pure. When the government is quite prying, people are indeed conniving.

The wise man looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end.