Laozi

The sage avoids extremity, excess, and extravagance.

Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.

Solve it before it happens. Order it before chaos emerges.

A climb of eight hundred feet starts where the foot stands.

Meet the difficult while it is easy.

Meet the big while it is small.

The sage regards things as difficult, and thereby avoids difficulty.

Those who know when to halt are unharmed.

I do not interfere, and people become rich by themselves.

The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done.

The sage acts by doing nothing.

The value comes from what is there, but the use comes from what is not there.

Make the small big and the few many.

The purest white seems stained.

Sometimes gain comes from losing, and sometimes loss comes from gaining.

The perfect square lacks corners.

High and low rest on each other.

First and last follow each other.

What's the difference between yes and no?

What is and what is not create each other.

When everyone in the world sees beauty, then ugly exists.