Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.

Whatever is flexible and living will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

The superior student listens to the Way and follows it closely. The average student listens to the Way and follows some and some not. The lesser student listens to the Way and laughs out loud. If there were no laughter it would not be the Way.

What is well planted will not be uprooted.

From now back to antiquity, its (Tao's) name has not been lost. Thereby, see the origin of all.

The Sage expects no recognition for what he does; he achieves merit but does not take it to himself; he does not wish to display his worth.