If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Lightly given promises must meet with little trust.

Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.

The first practice is the practice of undiscriminating virtue: take care of those who are deserving; also, and equally, take care of those who are not. When you extend your virtue in all directions without discriminating, you feet are firmly planted on the path that returns to the Tao.

People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure.

The highest virtue is not virtuous. Therefore it has virtue. The lowest virtue holds on to virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.

A man is born gentle and weak. At death he is hard and stiff.