People are difficult to rule, because of their knowledge.

Take care of what is difficult while it is still easy, and deal with what will become big while it is yet small.

When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.

Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief and spoke like a thief. But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.

Peace is our natural state of being.

The net of heaven is very wide in its meshes, and yet it misses nothing.

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.