If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning!

'I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin and its shell; the sun and moon for my two round symbols of jade, the stars and constellations for my pearls and jewels; and all things assisting as the mourners. Will not the provisions for my funeral be complete? What could you add to them?'

The Tao has no place for pettiness, and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said, rectify yourself and be done.

The fact is that those who do not see themselves but who see others, who fail to grasp of themselves but who grasp others, take possession of what others have but fail to possess themselves. they are attracted to what others enjoy but fail to find enjoyment in themselves.

A battering ram can knock down a city wall, but it cannot stop a hole. Different things have different uses.

If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight, hides himself as perfectly as he can.