Quotes from Laozi

If people do not revere the Law of Nature It will adversely affect them. If they accept It with knowledge and reverence, It will accommodate them with balance and harmony.

To know others is to have knowledge. To know yourself is to be enlightened.

People are difficult to rule, because of their knowledge.

To rule by knowledge ravages the country.

Those who know are not learned. Those who are learned do not know.

A good manager is best when people barely know that he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him.

Leadership is your ability to hide your panic from others.

To lead people, walk behind them.

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.

For one gains by losing And loses by gaining.

He who is attached to things will suffer much.

Going forward seems like retreat.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

The wise man, after learning something new, is afraid to learn anything more until he has put his first lesson into practice.

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

There is no need to run outside for better seeing... Rather abide at the center of your being; For the more you leave it the less you learn. Search your heart and see... The way to do is to be.

. . . learn to value what is important today in the subtle realm rather than what appears desirable tomorrow in the worldly realm.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

You cannot know the body by studying the finger, and you cannot understand the universe by learning one science.

In the Universe the difficult things are done as if they were easy.

Other people are joyous, like on the feast of the ox, like on the way up to the terrace in the spring. I alone am inert, giving no sign, like a newborn baby who has not learned to smile.

All men desire to free themselves solely from death; they do not know how to free themselves from life.

When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.