\n\n\nTrue 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
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\n\n\nCan 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
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\n\n\nTo 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
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\n\n\nThe five colors blind our eyes. The five notes deafen our ears. The five flavors dull our taste. ^ref-22246
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\n\n\nBe 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
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\n\n\nYou 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
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\n\n\nSo 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
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\n\n\nKnowing other people is intelligence, knowing yourself is wisdom. Overcoming others takes strength, overcoming yourself takes greatness. Contentment is wealth. ^ref-57553
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\n\n\nTo live till you die is to live long enough. ^ref-34265
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\n\n\nWhat 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
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\n\n\nWhat’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
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\n\n\nTo run things, be undiplomatic. No diplomat is fit to run things. ^ref-5295
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\n\n\nThe 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
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\n\n\nTo have without possessing, do without claiming, lead without controlling: this is mysterious power. ^ref-46612
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\n\n\nThe 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
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\n\n\nPeople 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
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\n\n\nIt 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
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\n\n\nWell 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
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\n\n\nWho knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know. ^ref-53432
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\n\n\nThe 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
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\n\n\nIn 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
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\n\n\nStudy 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
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\n\n\nLiving 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
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\n\n\nNothing 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
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