Zhuangzi Quotes

Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down.

4304

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

2835

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

2137

The time of the autumn floods came and the hundred streams poured into the Yellow River. … Then the Lord of the River was beside himself with Joy, believing that all the beauty in the world belonged to him alone.

2408

A path is made by walking on it.

3983

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.

3046

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

3922

Men all pay homage to what understanding understands, but no one understands enough to rely upon what understanding does not understand and thereby come to understand.

4698

In all affairs, whether large or small, there are few men who reach a happy conclusion except through the Way. If you do not succeed, you are bound to suffer from the judgment of men. If you do succeed, you are bound to suffer from the yin and yang. To suffer no harm whether or not you succeed - only the man who has virtue can do that.

3742

You should find the same joy in one condition as in the other and thereby be free of care, that is all. But now, when the things that happened along take their leave, you cease to be joyful. From this point of view, though you have joy, it will always be fated for destruction.

3811

So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow.

4120

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.

2279

Not to understand is profound; to understand is shallow. Not to understand is to be on the inside; to understand is to be on the outside.

2622

In the world everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know, but no one knows enough to pursue what he already knows. Everyone knows enough to condemn what he takes to be no good, but no one knows enough to condemn what he has already taken to be good.

4839

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.

2117

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 I say I don't know something I don't really in fact know it?

1206

Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.

1238

But a gentleman may embrace a doctrine without necessarily wearing the garb that goes with it, and he may wear the garb without necessarily comprehending the doctrine.

3864

Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.

3305

Eyes that are blind have no way to tell the loveliness of faces and features; eyes with no pupils have no way to tell the beauty of colored and embroidered silks.

1823

We can't expect a blind man to appreciate beautiful patterns or a deaf man to listen to bells and drums. And blindness and deafness are not confined to the body alone - the understanding has them, too.

4139

I've heard my teacher say, where there are machines, there are bound to be machine worries; where there are machine worries, there are bound to be machine hearts. With a machine heart in your breast, you've spoiled what was pure and simple; and without the pure and simple, the life of the spirit knows no rest.

3737

Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman – how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.

1334

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 those of an echo.

2858

Can you be a little baby? The baby howls all day, yet its throat never gets hoarse - harmony at its height! The baby makes fists all day, yet its fingers never get cramped - virtue is all it holds to. The baby stares all day without blinking its eyes - it has no preferences in the world of externals.

3841

The Spirit Tower has its guardian, but unless it understands who its guardian is, it cannot be guarded.

4297

I have heard that he who knows what is enough will not let himself be entangled by thoughts of gain; that he who really understands how to find satisfaction will not be afraid of other kinds of loss; and that he who practices the cultivation of what is within him will not be ashamed because he holds no position in society.

3701

The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror - going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing.

1016

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.

4006

The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.

3961