The weak overcomes the strong. The soft overcomes the hard. Everybody in the world knows this, still nobody makes use of it.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world. Through this I know the advantage of taking no action.

The sage is sharp but does not cut, pointed but does not pierce, forthright but does not offend, bright but does not dazzle.

A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.

To delight in conquest is to delight in slaughter.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.

People turn their eyes and ears to him (the sage), and the sage cares for them like his own children.