Location 201:

Scholarly translations of the Tao Te Ching as a manual for rulers use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist “sage,” his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for twenty-five hundred years. It is the most lovable of all the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous, and inexhaustibly refreshing. Of all the deep springs, this is the purest water. To me, it is also the deepest spring. —Ursula K. Le Guin

Location 214:

The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name. Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things. So the unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants. Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! The door to the hidden.

Location 330:

Can 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?

Location 343:

Thirty spokes meet in the hub. Where the wheel isn’t is where it’s useful. Hollowed out, clay makes a pot. Where the pot’s not is where it’s useful. Cut doors and windows to make a room. Where the room isn’t, there’s room for you. So the profit in what is is in the use of what isn’t.

Location 361:

So the wise soul watches with the inner not the outward eye, letting that go, keeping this.

Location 366:

To be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear. To take the body seriously is to admit one can suffer. What does that mean, to be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear? Favor debases: we fear to lose it, fear to win it. So to be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear.

Location 455:

Stop being holy, forget being prudent, it’ll be a hundred times better for everyone. Stop being altruistic, forget being righteous, people will remember what family feeling is. Stop planning, forget making a profit, there won’t be any thieves and robbers. But even these three rules needn’t be followed; what works reliably is to know the raw silk, hold the uncut wood. Need little, want less. Forget the rules. Be untroubled.

Tags: favorite

Location 512:

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.

Location 530:

Give yourself to the Way and you’ll be at home on the Way. Give yourself to power and you’ll be at home in power. Give yourself to loss and when you’re lost you’ll be at home. To give no trust is to get no trust.

Location 536:

You 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.

Location 587:

Good people teach people who aren’t good yet; the less good are the makings of the good. Anyone who doesn’t respect a teacher or cherish a student may be clever, but has gone astray. There’s a deep mystery here.

Location 591:

The hidden light and the deep mystery seem to be signals, saying “think about this”—about care for what seems unimportant. In a teacher’s parental care for the insignificant student, and in a society’s respect for mothers, teachers, and other obscure people who educate, there is indeed illumination and a profoundly human mystery. Having replaced instinct with language, society, and culture, we are the only species that depends on teaching and learning. We aren’t human without them. In them is true power. But are they the occupations of the rich and mighty?