Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.

The space under the sky is occupied by all things in their unity.

Your mind must become one, do not try to understand with your ears but with your heart. Indeed, not with your heart but with your soul.

The mind remains undetermined in the great Void. Here the highest knowledge is unbounded. That which gives things their thusness cannot be delimited by things. So when we speak of 'limits', we remain confined to limited things. The limit of the unlimited is called 'fullness.' The limitlessness of the limited is called 'emptiness.' Tao is the source of both. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness

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.

Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.

The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.