Life comes from the earth and life returns to the earth.

An archer competing for a clay vessel shoots effortlessly, his or her skill and concentration unimpeded. If the prize is changed to a brass ornament, the hands begin to shake. If it is changed to gold, he or she squints as if going blind. The abilities do not deteriorate, but belief in them does, as he or she allows the supposed value of an external reward to cloud the vision.

Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.

Tao is the source of both fullness and emptiness. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.

That knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.

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.