What is strong and rigid is snapped and laid low. What is flexible and soft will always prevail.

A whale out of water is over-run by ants.

As long as we have hope, we have direction, the energy to move, and the map to move by. We have a hundred alternatives, a thousand paths and an infinity of dreams. Hopeful, we are halfway to where we want to go; hopeless, we are lost forever.

The real art of governing consists, so far as possible, in doing nothing.

Do not make them (people) weary at their work. If you do not make them weary, they will not be weary of you.

There is one appointed supreme executioner. Truly, trying to take the place of the supreme executioner is like trying to carve wood like a master carpenter. Of those who try to carve wood like a master carpenter, there are few who do not injure their hands.

Yielding, like ice about to melt.