Taoism Quotes

• When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Life, Fun, Block

  "The Tao of Pooh". Book by Benjamin Hoff, 1982.

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habit.

  Laozi

  Motivational, Wisdom, Determination

  1271 Copy quote

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

  Laozi

  Space, Resistance, Offers

  18 Copy quote

• There is no greater disaster than discontent.

  Laozi

  Disaster, Discontent, Greater

  23 Copy quote

• Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures.

  Laozi

  Block, Dust, Giving

  56 Copy quote

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

  Laozi

  Giving, Tao Te Ching, Want

  21 Copy quote

• If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

  Laozi

  Tao Te Ching, Want, Empty

  25 Copy quote

• Movement overcomes cold.

  Laozi

  Overcoming, Movement, Cold

  Laozi (1999). “Laozi”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Intelligent people know others. Enlightened people know themselves.

  Laozi

  Intelligent, People, Enlightened

  19 Copy quote

• Goodness in words creates trust, goodness in thinking creates depth, goodness in giving creates love.

  Laozi

  Thinking, Giving, Depth

  42 Copy quote

• Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.

  Laozi

  Rivers, Mountain, Flow

  23 Copy quote

• The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of all things.

  Laozi

  Mother, Heaven, Tao Te Ching

  Laozi, Philip J. Ivanhoe (2003). “The Daodejing of Laozi”, p.104, Hackett Publishing

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Abandon cleverness, discard profit, and thieves and robbers will disappear.

  Laozi

  Thieves, Disappear, Profit

  25 Copy quote

• Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

  Zhuangzi

  Dream, Butterfly, Men

  'Chuang Tzu' (1889, translated by H. A. Giles) ch. 2

  130 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Master observes the world, but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is as open as the sky.

  Laozi

  Heart, Sky, Vision

  55 Copy quote

• Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.

  Laozi

  Kindness, Compassion, Law

  56 Copy quote

• 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!

  Zhuangzi

  Effort, Understanding, Trying

  59 Copy quote

• Approach your own inner life with a loving quality that accepts who you are without trying to change who you are.

  Laozi

  Trying, Quality, Accepting

  20 Copy quote

• When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

  Laozi

  Tao Te Ching, Done, Pursuit Of Knowledge

  Laozi (2008). “Daodejing: A Literal-critical Translation”, University Press of Amer

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple.

  Laozi

  Simple, Thinking, Dwelling

  65 Copy quote

• The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Men, Views

  42 Copy quote

• Don't impose your will through manipulation of aggressive emotions and actions.

  Laozi

  Manipulation, Action, Emotion

  17 Copy quote

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

  Laozi

  Expectations, Kind, Guides

  17 Copy quote

• If you want to nourish a bird, you should let it live any way it chooses. Creatures differ because they have different likes and dislikes. Therefore the sages never require the same ability from all creatures. . . concepts of right should be founded on what is suitable. The true saint leaves wisdom to the ants, takes a cue from the fishes, and leaves willfulness to the sheep.

  Zhuangzi

  Sheep, Likes And Dislikes, Bird

  87 Copy quote

• Only the intelligent knows how to identify all things as one. . . . When one is at ease with himself, one is near Tao. This is to let Nature take its own course.

  Zhuangzi

  Nature, Intelligent, Ease

  20 Copy quote