Keeping plenty of gold and jade in the palace makes no one able to defend it.
Interpretation
Material wealth does not equate to security or strength.
This quote by Laozi highlights the idea that hoarding wealth, represented by gold and jade, does not provide true security or protection. Instead, it suggests that an overemphasis on material possessions can lead to vulnerability, as these treasures can attract conflict and do not contribute to the stability or safety of a community or individual.
In practice
In a debate about the importance of financial security versus emotional well-being.
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.
Through tears and trials, through fears and sorrows, through the heartache and loneliness of losing loved ones, there is assurance that life is everlasting. Our Lord and Savior is the living witness that such is so.
All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?
Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time. Money is talking to itself.
So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.
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