Tao of the Day

A wise man has no opinion at all Therefore he can easily put himself in someone else’s position He accepts everybody and everything for what it is In spite of any behaviour He trusts the honest and the unfair A...

Gathering knowledge makes life more complicated each time one gathers Gathering wisdom makes life easier each time one gathers Each time, more and more simple until simplicity is reached Just by leaving, one man can achieve everything One who wants nothing anymore, doesn’t feel the need to do a t...

Without leaving my house, I understand the whole world Without looking outside, I see the perfect order The more you know, the less you’ll understand One who is wise doesn’t need to travel He understands without looking Doe...

If men lived by their nature Horses would gallop in the open air But since men got civilized Battle horses standing at the frontier There is no bigger curse than dissatisfaction...

Perfection seems unfinished to this world But it never perishes Fullness is empty to the world But it’s inexhaustible That which is correct, is incorrect to the world W...

What comes first, life or status? What’s more important to you, yourself or your possessions? What’s worse, having or losing? On...

The softest is stronger than the very hardest That which makes everything be what it is, penetrates everything Therefore I know that it’s wise to leave and not do anything That one doesn’t need lessons for it That of all doings, leaving is where true happiness lies In this world only a few und...

The unspeakable gives birth to one One to a second And out of the second arises the third The third brings the whole creation to life Everything is carried by the dark and comes to light...

When the most sincere hear about the road to self-knowledge, They will devote themselves to bringing it into practice When the fairly sincere hear about the road to self-knowledge They will only get out of it what suits their purposes When the hardened hear about the road to self-knowledge They...

One who deviates from the right and simple road Will be pulled towards it again This occurs with a mild touch The whole creation comes into existence The existing out of the unnameable unexisting

About the men of old that had reached perfection We know that they felt one with the whole creation That they saw the earth not as chaos but as a unity That they felt like gods and spiritual beings That emptiness was no longer empty, but filled And they saw that the whole creation was...

True virtues are not from this world, Therefore they are true virtues The so-called “virtues” in this world Serve only self-interest Therefore those are not true virtues One...

Only what’s stretched out can be pulled together Only what’s fortified can be weakened Only what’s increased can be decreased Only one who has, can lose That must be clear Soft ...

For one who beholds the perfect arrangement of things Everything falls in its rightful place Nothing can harm him, and rest and peace will fall to him Along the way there are travellers who yield music and feasts Because the road to self-knowledge is acrid and unpleasant Not pleasant to...