If you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.
Interpretation
True understanding comes from combining intellectual thought with emotional connection.
In this quote by Laozi, the essence of true wisdom is highlighted, suggesting that intellectual comprehension alone is insufficient. To truly embody an idea, particularly the concept of the Tao, one must not only think about it but also feel it deeply with the heart, which leads to a lasting internalization of its principles and truths.
In practice
In a discussion about mindfulness, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of emotional engagement in understanding life.
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.
When we're interested in something, everything around us appears to refer to it (the mystics call these phenomena "signs," the sceptics "coincidence," and psychologists "concentrated focus," although I've yet to find out what term historians should use).
The vicarious responsibility for things we have not done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of, is the price we pay for the fact that we live our lives not by ourselves but among our fellow men, and that the faculty of action, which, after all, is the political faculty par excellence, can be actualized only as one of the many and manifold forces of human community.
Opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses.
Live as a villain, die as a hero
It costs something to be a true Christian. It will cost us our sins, our self-righteousn ess, our ease and our worldliness.
But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone. ~pg 254
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