Quotes on Tao

The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing, answers without speaking a word, arrives without being summoned, accomplishes without a plan. Its net covers the whole universe. And though its meshes are wide, it doesn't let a thing slip through.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are that you'll cut your hand.

The saying goes, 'The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.' This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up.

The Tao which you know is not the eternal Tao

Can you love or guide someone without any kind of expectation?

That which offers no resistance can enter where there is no space.

The Master doesn't seek fulfillment. For only those who are not full are able to be used which brings the feeling of completeness.

Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?

That which offers no resistance, overcomes the hardest substances.

When you have accomplished your goal simply walk away. This is the path way to Heaven.

Intelligent people know others. Enlightened people know themselves.

The Tao is told is not the Tao.

The Tao principle is what happens of itself.

When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.

If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning!

When you accurately perceive the fluidity of things, you can also begin to perceive the constancy behind them: the creative, transformative, boundless, immutable Tao.

The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and yang give birth to all things... The complete whole is the complete whole. So also is any part the complete whole... But forget about understanding and harmonizing and making all things one. The universe is already a harmonious oneness; just realize it.

The Tao's principle is spontaneity.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

When there is no desire, all things are at peace

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.