Quotes about Lao tzu

To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, This is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, This is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of the sickness Shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. -ch. 71, Tao Teh Ching, trans. John C. H. Wu, Shambhala, Boston & London, c.1990

Without going out of your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, The less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without travelling, Sees without looking, And achieves without Ado. 

My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them.

Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.

ONE

Leadership that can be fully explained is never True Leadership.

An element of mystery must remain.

Methods of Leading People that can be completely understood

are not the eternal Way of Leading People.

"Wordless" is the beginning & end of True Leadership.

Leadership begins with words.

The door to endless mystery.

FIFTEEN

Leaders of tomorrow-if they are to be at all-will be subtle, embodied & responsive.

Their leadership knowledge beyond measure.

Because it is beyond measure, all we can do

Is describe their behavior.

Connected in relationship to all things

Yet standing alone.

Exploring the depths of the outer

While plumbing the space of the inner

Until outer and inner become one.

Far beyond flatland.

A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.

If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given. This is called the subtler perception of the way things are. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results.

Do you think that you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear. Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. . . . The Tao is clear and simple, and it doesn't avoid the world.

"Those who talk do not know. Those that know do not talk." - Lao Tzu

"What the catapiller calls the end of the world...the rest of the world calls a butterfly." - Lao Tzu

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. 

"The one who is conscious (in Tao) can't speak.
The one who can speak is not conscious (centered in Tao)"

"The one who is conscious (in Tao) can't speak.
The one who can speak is not conscious (centered in Tao)"[Lao Tzu chapter 56]

"Everything in moderation, even moderation."

Verse 68 The Ethics of War

The best soldier fights

Without vengeance,

Without anger

And without hate.


He puts himself humbly

Below his comrades,

Thereby eliciting

The highest loyalty from them.


This is the power

Of non-belligerence

And cooperation.

It is the ancient path to the Great Integrity.

Verse 63 The secret to getting things done

Act without acting on.  Work without working at.

Enter bountifulness when it is still insufficiency. Answer with kindness when faced with hostility.

Begin a difficult task in its easy stage, because large problems grow from small ones.

Begin a large task in its formative state, because complex issues originate from simple ones.

But be aware of those who promise quick and easy solutions! Accept problems as challenges.

In this way, the sage accomplishes great tasks without ever having to struggle with them.