Geese are white, crows are black. No argument will change this.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the acceptance of facts and truths that are immutable, regardless of debate or argument.
Laozi's quote highlights the importance of recognizing and accepting the unchangeable truths in life. The colors of geese and crows serve as metaphors for undeniable realities; no amount of discussion or argumentation can alter these facts. This perspective encourages a focus on acceptance rather than futile debates over matters that are clear and evident.
In practice
During a debate on social media about climate change, one could use this quote to stress the importance of accepting scientific facts.
If you understand others you are smart._x000D_ If you understand yourself you are illuminated._x000D_ If you overcome others you are powerful._x000D_ If you overcome yourself you have strength._x000D_ If you know how to be satisfied you are rich._x000D_ If you can act with vigor, you have a will._x000D_ If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting._x000D_ If you die without loss, you are eternal.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave's blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being--not a slave's--coursing through his veins.
Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
As a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.
The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream.
Under the color-blind ideology of the new racism, Blackness must be SEEN as evidence for the alleged color blindness that seemingly characterizes contemporary economic opportunity.
For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: βLiving and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former."
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