Quotes on Tao Te Ching

To understand the limitation of things, desire them.

My teachings are easy to understand and easy to put into practice. Yet your intellect will never grasp them, and if you try to practice them, you'll fail. My teachings are older than the world. How can you grasp their meaning? If you want to know me, look inside your heart.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.

Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

Simplicity, patience, compassion._x000D_ _x000D_ These three are your greatest treasures._x000D_ _x000D_ Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being._x000D_ _x000D_ Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are._x000D_ _x000D_ Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve.