Misery is what happiness rests upon. Happiness is what misery lurks beneath.

The Tao is like a well; used but never used up.

Why not simply honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility for problems, practice virtue without first demanding it of others, understand the highest truths yet retain an ordinary manner? That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery.

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.

Loss is not as bad as wanting more.

The rigid tree will be felled.

Throw away sacredness and wisdom and people will be one hundred times happier.