Whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. What is soft is strong.

The value comes from what is there, but the use comes from what is not there.

Accept disgrace willingly... Accept being unimportant... Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things. Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.

Pride attaches undue importance to the superiority of one's status in the eyes of others; and shame is fear of humiliation at one's inferior status in the estimation of others. When one sets one's heart on being highly esteemed, and achieves such rating, then he or she is automatically involved in fear of losing status.

The noble must make humility his root.

All things of the world are born of being; being is born of nonbeing.

The river and the sea can be kings of a hundred valleys, because they lie below them.