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When the Way is lost there is virtue. When virtue is lost there is benevolence. When benevolence is lost there is righteousness. When righteousness is lost there are rituals.

Laozi

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Laozi
Archivist
Philosopher
Writer
Lao-tze
Lao Tzu
Lao-tzu
Lao-tsu
Li Er
Laotze
Taoism
Ritual
Righteousness
Virtue
Lost
Way
Rituals
Benevolence

More quotes by Laozi

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They can see their neighbors. Roosters and dogs can be heard from there. Still, they will age and die without visiting one another.
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The value of teaching without words and accomplishing without action is understood by few in the world.
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Nature's way is simple and easy, but men prefer the intricate and artificial.
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Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course? Can you step back from you own mind and thus understand all things? Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.
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Appetite for food and sex is nature.
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If the majority doesn't laugh at you, beware that you must be saying something wrong. When the majority thinks you are a fool, only then is there some possibility of you being a wise man.
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The subtlest of subtleties, this is the gateway to all mysteries.
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Although most people spend their entire lives following this biological impulse (i.e. the sex drive), it is only a tiny portion of our beings. . . . If we remain obsessed with seeds and eggs, we are married to the fertile reproductive valley of the Mysterious Mother but not to her immeasurable heart and all-knowing mind.
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He who tip-toes cannot stand he who strides cannot walk.
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If people live in constant fear of death, and if breaking the law is punished by death, then who would dare?
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The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.
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The world is a sacred vessel that cannot be changed. He who changes it will destroy it. He who seizes it will lose it.
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The best of all teachers is the one who helps people so that eventually they don't need him.
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One's own self or material goods, which has more worth? Loss (of self) or possession (of goods), which is the greater evil? He who loves most, spends most, He who hoards much loses much
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Between yea and nay, how much difference is there?
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If you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.
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. . . These are notions of the mind, which is like a knife, always chipping away at the Tao, trying to render it graspable and manageable. But that which is beyond form is ungraspable, and that which is beyond knowing is unmanageable. There is, however, this consolation: She who lets go of the knife will find the Tao at her fingertips.
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If you search everywhere, yet cannot find what you are seeking, it is because what you seek is already in your possession.
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He who knows himself is enlightened.
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All things flourish, and each returns to its source.
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