Best 485 quotes in «taoism quotes» category

You can trust everyone to be human, with all the quirks and inconsistencies we humans display, including disloyalty, dishonesty and downright treachery. We are all capable of the entire range of human behavior, given the circumstances, from absolute saintliness to abject depravity. Trusting someone to limit their sphere of action to one narrow band on the spectrum is idealistic and will inevitably lead to disappointment. On the other hand, you can decide to trust that everyone is doing their best according to their particular stage of development, and to give everyone their appropriate berth. For this to work, you have to trust yourself to make and have made the right choices that will lead you on the path to your healthy growth. You have to trust yourself to come through every experience safely and enriched. But don’t trust what I am saying. Listen and then decide for yourself. Does this information sit easily in your belly? You know when you trust yourself around someone because your belly feels settled and your heart feels warm.

...you'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are. We will let a selection from the writings of Chuang-tse illustrate: Hui-tse said to Chuang-tse, "I have a large tree which no carpenter can cut into lumber. Its branches and trunk are crooked and tough, covered with bumps and depressions. No builder would turn his head to look at it. Your teachings are the same - useless, without value. Therefore, no one pays attention to them." ... "You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.

You forget your feet when the shoes are comfortable. You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable. Understanding forgets right and wrong when the mind is comfortable. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. You begin with what is comfortable and never experience what is uncomfortable when you know the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable.

You have everything already inside you necessary for the true response to any challenge you will meet. Usually, it’s just a question of assembling some elements in a way that you didn’t think to do before (which brings us to intuition…).

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 great unity with the deep and boundless.

You may have noticed that the questions asked are better than the answers given. What do you expect? Perhaps we could submit these answers in a game and see if anyone could figure out what the hell the question was. “Ahh, how to be happy?

Abandon benevolence, discard duty, and people will return to the family ties.

Your purpose, and its specific expressions, expands and accelerates as it becomes more similar to Nature’s purpose. The tools you need to apply it you collect along the path in discovering what that is. Time is there to provide you with the “opportunities” to find more creative responses to things like frustration, confusion and self-righteousness. As you gently, oh so gently and delicately, adjust to the requirements that exist in your actual circumstance, you are given the tools needed to surpass them.

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.

Abandon cleverness, discard profit, and thieves and robbers will disappear.

Acting without design, occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings; this is the method of Tao.

Although there are weapons for tens and hundreds of soldiers, they will not be used.

A great country needs more people to serve it. A small country needs more people to serve. So, if both shall get what they need, the great country ought to yield.

A good wanderer leaves no trace.

All things carry yin and embrace yang. They reach harmony by blending with the vital breath.

All things such as grass and trees are soft and supple in life. At their death they are withered and dry.

Cautious, like crossing a river in the winter.

Approach your own inner life with a loving quality that accepts who you are without trying to change who you are.

Being a model to the world, eternal virtue will never falter in you, and you return to the boundless.

A net set up to catch fish may snare a duck; a mantis hunting an insect may itself be set upon by a sparrow. Machinations are hidden within machinations; changes arise beyond changes. So how can wit and cleverness be relied upon?

A tree as wide as a man's embrace grows from a tiny shoot.

Chaos is not disorder. Chaos is the totality of existence. You could call it God. You could use the term, the Tao. I like chaos. It means more to us in English. Chaos is all things, wild and wonderful, connected perfectly by the life force.

Do not make them (people) weary at their work. If you do not make them weary, they will not be weary of you.

Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity.

Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.

Cultivate virtue in yourself, and it will be true.

Conquering the world and changing it, I do not think it can succeed.

Cultivate virtue in the world, and it will be universal.

Displaying riches and titles with pride brings about one's downfall.

Examine everything that you've been taught, not simply what you've been taught in school, but the images that have been held up to you since the time of your birth.

Do you think you can make the world a better place? I do not think you can. It is already perfect.

Excellent warriors are not violent.

He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

Gradually, you were given a description of the world, a way of seeing, which is largely sexual.

Having reached a high level of realization (or having accomplished anything in life), don't get excited or puffed up with pride but remain calm, humble, and in "perfect equanimity" if you want to continue in this deep state of consciousness.

Heaven and Earth are not kind. They regard all things as offerings.

He who treasures his body as much as the world can care for the world.

Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.

I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.

Hold on to the ancient Way to master the present, and to learn the distant beginning.

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning!

If a great country yields to a small country, it will conquer the small country. If a small country yields to a great country, it will be conquered by the great country.

If you don't change direction, you end up where you are headed.

If good happens, good; if bad happens, good.

If you search everywhere, yet cannot find what you are seeking, it is because what you seek is already in your possession.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

Knowing the future is the flower of the Way, and the beginning of folly.

I have three treasures that I cherish. The first is compassion. The second is moderation. The third is not claiming to be first in the world.