Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course? Can you step back from you own mind and thus understand all things? Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.

Those who show off do not shine.

It is wisdom to know others. It is enlightenment to know oneself.

Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too much poking.

Heaven's net is very vast. It is sparsely meshed, yet nothing slips through.

Quarrel with a friend - and you are both wrong.

When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, There arises the recognition of evil.