The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty to the ear, or to the mind.
ZhuangziRead
The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that a sage navigates life's uncertainties and complexities by embracing doubt and chaos.
Zhuangzi implies that the journey of wisdom is not about avoiding confusion and doubt but rather about understanding and navigating through them. A true sage recognizes that chaos is an inherent part of existence, and instead of resisting it, they use it as a guiding force to gain deeper insights into life and reality.
Themes
DoubtChaosWisdomSageNavigation
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
More from Zhuangzi
All quotes βEither in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.
ZhuangziRead
When people do not ignore what they should ignore, but ignore what they should not ignore, this is known as ignorance.
ZhuangziRead
The true man of the past waited upon Heaven when dealing with people and did not wait upon people when dealing with Heaven.
ZhuangziRead
The mind remains undetermined in the great Void. Here the highest knowledge is unbounded. That which gives things their thusness cannot be delimited by things. So when we speak of 'limits', we remain confined to limited things. The limit of the unlimited is called 'fullness.' The limitlessness of the limited is called 'emptiness.' Tao is the source of both. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness
ZhuangziRead
All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.
ZhuangziRead
Similar quotes
The universe is so immense that it appears immutable, and that the duration of a planet such as that of the earth is only a chapter, less than that, a phrase, less still, only a word of the universeβs history.
Camille FlammarionRead
Sometimes the silence can be like thunder.
Bob DylanRead
An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.
Christopher HitchensRead
It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.
Thomas AquinasRead
Whether I am or am not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.
Paul RobesonRead
It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.
Henry David ThoreauRead