Highlights

True goodness is like water. Water’s good for everything. It doesn’t compete. It goes right to the low loathsome places, and so finds the way. ^ref-18455

Can you keep the deep water still and clear, so it reflects without blurring? Can you love people and run things, and do so by not doing? ^ref-55667

To give birth, to nourish, to bear and not to own, to act and not lay claim, to lead and not to rule: this is mysterious power. ^ref-6646

The five colors blind our eyes. The five notes deafen our ears. The five flavors dull our taste. ^ref-22246

Be broken to be whole. Twist to be straight. Be empty to be full. Wear out to be renewed. Have little and gain much. Have much and get confused. So wise souls hold to the one, and test all things against it. Not showing themselves, they shine forth. Not justifying themselves, they’re self-evident. Not praising themselves, they’re accomplished. Not competing, they have in all the world no competitor. ^ref-44901

You can’t keep standing on tiptoe or walk in leaps and bounds. You can’t shine by showing off or get ahead by pushing. Self-satisfied people do no good, self-promoters never grow up. ^ref-61584

So wise souls are good at caring for people, never turning their back on anyone. They’re good at looking after things, never turning their back on anything. There’s a light hidden here. ^ref-21447

Knowing other people is intelligence, knowing yourself is wisdom. Overcoming others takes strength, overcoming yourself takes greatness. Contentment is wealth. ^ref-57553

To live till you die is to live long enough. ^ref-34265

What seeks to shrink must first have grown; what seeks weakness surely was strong. What seeks its ruin must first have risen; what seeks to take has surely given. ^ref-48176

What’s softest in the world rushes and runs over what’s hardest in the world. The immaterial enters the impenetrable. So I know the good in not doing. The wordless teaching, the profit in not doing— not many people understand it. ^ref-22301

To run things, be undiplomatic. No diplomat is fit to run things. ^ref-5295

The wise have no mind of their own, finding it in the minds of ordinary people. They’re good to good people and they’re good to bad people. Power is goodness. They trust people of good faith and they trust people of bad faith. Power is trust. ^ref-15070

To have without possessing, do without claiming, lead without controlling: this is mysterious power. ^ref-46612

The great way is low and plain, but people like shortcuts over the mountains. The palace is full of splendor and the fields are full of weeds and the granaries are full of nothing. ^ref-26462

People wearing ornaments and fancy clothes, carrying weapons, drinking a lot and eating a lot, having a lot of things, a lot of money: shameless thieves. ^ref-10916

It is in this sense that I understand how the natural, inevitable cycle of youth, growth, mature vigor, age, and decay can be “not the Way.” The Way is more than the cycle of any individual life. We rise, flourish, fail. The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea. ^ref-2784

Well planted is not uprooted, well kept is not lost. The offerings of the generations to the ancestors will not cease. To follow the way yourself is real power. To follow it in the family is abundant power. To follow it in the community is steady power. To follow it in the whole country is lasting power. To follow it in the world is universal power. ^ref-18107

Who knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know. ^ref-53432

The more restrictions and prohibitions in the world, the poorer people get. The more experts the country has the more of a mess it’s in. The more ingenious the skillful are, the more monstrous their inventions. The louder the call for law and order, the more the thieves and con men multiply. ^ref-55489

In the last verse most translators say the Taoist is square but doesn’t cut, shines but doesn’t dazzle. Waley says that this misses the point. The point is that Taoists gain their ends without the use of means. That is indeed a light that does not shine—an idea that must be pondered and brooded over. A small dark light. ^ref-55338

Study the hard while it’s easy. Do big things while they’re small. The hardest jobs in the world start out easy, the great affairs of the world start small. So the wise soul, by never dealing with great things, gets great things done. ^ref-40220

Living people are soft and tender. Corpses are hard and stiff. The ten thousand things, the living grass, the trees, are soft, pliant. Dead, they’re dry and brittle. So hardness and stiffness go with death; tenderness, softness, go with life. ^ref-38396

Nothing in the world is as soft, as weak, as water; nothing else can wear away the hard, the strong, and remain unaltered. Soft overcomes hard, weak overcomes strong. Everybody knows it, nobody uses the knowledge. ^ref-3438

Metadata

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
ASIN: B007V3FMDY
ISBN: 1611807247
Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007V3FMDY
Kindle link

Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way

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