Peace and quiet are preferred. Victory should not be praised.

Does one scent appeal more than another? Do you prefer this flavor, or that feeling? Is your practice sacred and your work profane? Then your mind is separated: from itself, from oneness, from the Tao.

The eternal void is filled with infinite possibilities

He who acts, spoils; he who grasps, lets slip.

A great country needs more people to serve it. A small country needs more people to serve. So, if both shall get what they need, the great country ought to yield.

Softness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immoveable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.

Worlds and particles, bodies and beings, time and space: All are transient expressions of the Tao.