Acting without design, occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings; this is the method of Tao.

All things arise in unison. Thereby we see their return.

The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing, answers without speaking a word, arrives without being summoned, accomplishes without a plan. Its net covers the whole universe. And though its meshes are wide, it doesn't let a thing slip through.

There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.

The world's big things only can be done by paying attention to their humble beginnings.

Do not imagine that an integral being has the ambition of enlightening the unaware or raising worldly people to the divine realm. To her, there is no self and other, and hence no one to be raised; no heaven and hell, and hence no destination.

Those who have the courage to dare will perish. Those who have the courage not to dare will live.