The great Way is very straight, but people prefer to deviate.

To know people is wisdom, but to know yourself is enlightenment. to master people takes force, but to master yourself takes strength. to know contentment is wealth, and to live with strength resolve. to never leave whatever you are is to abide, and to die without getting lost- that is to live on and on.

The more sharp weapons people have in a country, the bigger the disorder will be.

Is not the action of nature like the stretching of a bow? The high, it pulls down; the low, it lifts up; It takes from what is in excess In order to make good of what is deficient. Who can take what they have in excess and offer it to others?

The universe is deathless; Is deathless because, having no finite self, it stays infinite. A sound man by not advancing himself stays the further ahead of himself, By not confining himself to himself sustains himself outside himself: By never being an end in himself he endlessly becomes himself.

Approach your own inner life with a loving quality that accepts who you are without trying to change who you are.

Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious.