He who steals a belt buckle pays with his life; he who steals a state gets to be a feudal lord.

A man like this will not go where he has no will to go, will not do what he has no mind to do. Though the world might praise him and say he had really...

Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

A path is made by walking on it.

To forget the whole world is easy; to make the whole world forget you is hard.

You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in...

You can’t discuss the ocean with a well frog – he’s limited by the space he lives in. You can’t discuss ice with a summer insect – he’s bound to a single season.

People who excuse their faults and claim they didn’t deserved to be punished – there are lots of them. But those who don’t excuse their faults and admit they didn’t deserve to be spared –...

When a man does not dwell in self, then things will of themselves reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like...

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?

The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.

A good completion takes a long time; a bad completion cannot be changed later.

A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole – this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji...

Suppose I try saying something. What way do I have of knowing that if I say I know something I don’t really not know it? Or what way do I have of knowing that if...

In the midst of darkness, he alone sees the dawn; in the midst of the soundless, he alone hears harmony.

Life, death, preservation, loss, failure, success, poverty, riches, worthiness, unworthiness, slander, fame, hunger, thirst, cold, heat – these are the alternations of the world, the workings of fate. Day and night they change place before...

When men do not forget what can be forgotten but forget what cannot be forgotten – that may be called true forgetting.

Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind – that is the reason he is still.

Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it...

Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger.

With all the confusion in the world these days, no matter how often I point the way, what good does it do? And if I know it does no good and still make myself do...