Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” Quotes (23 Quotes)

When its work is accomplished, it does not claim the name of having done it.

Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends.

The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

With no desire, at rest and still, All things go right as of their will.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?

The road you can talk about is not the road you can walk on

He is free from self- display, and therefore he shines;

The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

The wise man is one who, knows, what he does not know.

If good happens, good; if bad happens, good.

The Wise Man is square but not sharp, honest but not not malign, straight but not severe, bright but not dazzling.

If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

It is because he is thus free from striving that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.

To understand the limitation of things, desire them.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.

So it is that some things are increased by being diminished, and others are diminished by being increased.

What is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out.

The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.

When goodness is lost there is morality.

The further one goes, the less one knows.