Taoism Quotes - Page 19

• Even if you do no work that is particularly lofty or far-reaching, if you can shed mundane feelings, that is a great achievement. Even if you do not strive much for progress in learning, if you can minimize the influence things have on you, you will soar into the realm of sages.

  Zicheng Hong

  Achievement, Feelings, Progress

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• In whatever you do, if you leave a sense of incompleteness, then Creation cannot resent you, ghosts and spirits cannot harm you. If you insist on fulfillment in your work and perfection in achievement, you will become either inwardly deranged or outwardly unsettled.

  Zicheng Hong

  Resent You, Perfection, Achievement

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• If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

  Zicheng Hong

  Girl, Giving Up, Hard Times

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• When thoughts arise, as soon as you sense them heading on the road of desire, bring them right back onto the road of reason. Once they arise, notice them, once you notice them, you can change them. This is the key to turning calamity into fortune, rising from death and returning to life.

  Zicheng Hong

  Keys, Desire, Rising

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• In adversity, everything that surrounds you is a kind of medicine that helps you refine your conduct, yet you are unaware of it. In pleasant situations, you are faced with weapons that will tear you apart, yet you do not realize it.

  Zicheng Hong

  Adversity, Medicine, Tears

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• Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately. Delightful things are all purveyors of destruction and decadence, but there is no regret if one enjoys them moderately.

  Zicheng Hong

  Regret, Drug, Bones

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• Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

  Zicheng Hong

  Ordinary, Action, Unusual

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• 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.

  Frederick Lenz

  School, Up To You, Taught

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• Get some distance on yourself and undertand the multilevel structure that's operating. There's a power structure within you. You're a very political creature.

  Frederick Lenz

  Distance, Political, Structure

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• When you meet silent and inscrutable people, don't tell them what you are thinking. When you meet irritable and self-serving people, be careful what you say.

  Zicheng Hong

  Thinking, Self, People

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• For a person who lives in time, differences are the most important thing because they represent your existence.

  Frederick Lenz

  Differences, Important, Time Difference

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• When there's no difference, there's no time, no world, no separativity - and there's no you ... nor is there an I.

  Frederick Lenz

  Differences, World

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• Initially there's absolutely nothing.

  Frederick Lenz

  Absolutely Nothing

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• When we have complements or oppositions, change occurs.

  Frederick Lenz

  Complement, Opposition

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• Change can only exist in time. Without time there is no change. Change can only exist with a background of that which is changeless, otherwise it has no definition.

  Frederick Lenz

  Definitions, Backgrounds

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• A clear sunny day can suddenly shift to thunder and lightning, a raging storm can suddenly give way to a bright moonlit night. The weather may be inconstant, but the sky remains the same. The substance of the human mind should also be like this.

  Zicheng Hong

  Night, Sky, Weather

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• In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

  Laozi

  Learning, Pursuit, Tao Te Ching Leadership

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

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• 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.

  Laozi

  Kindness, Business, Design

  Laozi, Sepharial (1904). “The Book of the Simple Way of Laotze: A New Translation from the Text of the Tao-teh-king”

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• But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path?

  Confucius

  Business, Effort, Path

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• He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Dozing, Exhausted

  Laozi (1959). “Tao Tê Ching: A New Translation”

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• I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Evil, Spirit

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• Be in harmony with the Tao, with the basic principles of creation. To not be in harmony with that flow, no matter how hard you meditate, you will not be happy and you won't be liberated.

  Frederick Lenz

  Principles, Matter, Flow

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• One should not seek happiness, just nurture the spirit of joy as the basis of summoning happiness. One should not try to escape misfortune, just get rid of viciousness as a means of avoiding misfortune.

  Zicheng Hong

  Mean, Joy, Trying

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• When you accurately perceive the fluidity of things, you can also begin to perceive the constancy behind them: the creative, transformative, boundless, immutable Tao.

  Laozi

  Creative, Fluidity, Constancy

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• The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet.

  Laozi

  Feet, Mind, Tao

  Laozi, Brian Browne Walker (1992). “Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu”

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