Quotes from Laozi

The leader is a teacher who succeeds without taking credit. And, because credit is not taken, credit is received.

A good person is the bad person's teacher. A bad person is the good person's task.

The best of all teachers is the one who helps people so that eventually they don't need him.

The one who does not honor the teacher and the one who does not honor the task, although ever so knowledgeable, they are confused.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job? If you do not remember this, You will get lost, No matter how intelligent you are. It is the great secret.

What is a good man? A teacher of a bad man. What is a bad man? A good man's charge?

The greatest teacher has nothing to say. He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.

Deal with difficult tasks while they are easy. Act on large issues while they are small.

To joy in conquest is to joy in the loss of human life.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Instead of being afraid of death, we should try to awake to life; and the only death we should escape from is to forget the presence of God into us.

People take death lightly. They expect too much of life. That is why people take death lightly.

Truly, only acting without thought of one's life is superior to valuing one's life.

Take time to listen to what is said without words, to obey the law too subtle to be written, to worship the unnameable and to embrace the unformed.

Life is going forth; death is returning home.

The transformation toward eternal life is gradual. The heavy gross energy of body, mind, and spirit must first be purified and uplifted. When the energy ascends... then self mastery can be sought.

How can a man's life keep it's course If he will not let it flow, Those who flow as life flows know They need no other force: They feel no wear, they feel no tear, They need no mending, no repair.

Because he is a living divinity, when he acts, the universe acts.

Be content with an ordinary life.

Filling life exceedingly is called ominous.

The surest test if a person be sane, is if she accepts life whole, as it is.

To have little is to possess.

Man at his birth is supple and tender, but in death, he is rigid and hard. Thus, suppleness and tenderness accompany life, but rigidity and hardness accompany death.

The hard and stiff are death's companions. The soft and weak are life's companions.