Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.

Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.

To bear and not to own; to act and not lay claim; to do the work and let it go: for just letting it go is what makes it stay.

The sturdiest virtue seems fragile.

That the soft overcomes the hard, and the yielding overcomes the resistant, is a fact known by all, but practiced by few.

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.

Of all things, none does not revere the Way and honor virtue. Reverence of the Way and honoring virtue were not demanded of them, but it is in their nature.