A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.

Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!

If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind.

Great knowledge sees all in one. Small knowledge breaks down into the many.

It is only when the formed learns from the unformed that there is understanding.

Those that think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues; those that seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame; those that cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid of losing them. When they let them go, they are grieved and they will not look at a single example, from which they might perceive the folly of their restless pursuits - such men are under the doom of heaven.

We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.