The most difficult in the world must be easy in its beginning.

Seal the openings, shut the doors, and until your last day you will not be exhausted. Widen the openings, interfere, and until your last day you will not be safe.

The best people are like water, which benefits all things and does not compete with them. It stays in lowly places that others reject. This is why it is so similar to the Way.

Having reached a high level of realization (or having accomplished anything in life), don't get excited or puffed up with pride but remain calm, humble, and in "perfect equanimity" if you want to continue in this deep state of consciousness.

Distortion upon distortion: . . . the more one uses the mind, the more confused one becomes.

Sages do not accumulate for themselves. The more they give to others, the more they possess of their own. The way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.

A man's excellence is like that of water; It benefits all things without striving; It takes to the low places shunned by men. Water is akin to Tao. . . . In all the earth nothing weaker than water, Yet in attacking the hard, nothing superior, Nothing so certain in wearing down strength: There is no way to resist it. Note then: The weak conquer the strong, The yielding outlast the aggressors.