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The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Laozi

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Laozi
Archivist
Philosopher
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Lao-tze
Lao Tzu
Lao-tzu
Lao-tsu
Li Er
Laotze
Shadowy
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Presence
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If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
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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.
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The female always surpasses the male with stillness. In her stillness she is yielding.
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Nature doesn't make long speeches.
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Stop trying to control. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.
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Clay is fashioned into vessels it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends. Doors and windows are cut out to make a dwelling, and on the empty space within, its use depends. Thus, while the existence of things may be good, it is the non-existence in them that makes them serviceable.
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When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked.
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Excellent leaders of people lower themselves.
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The grandest virtue seems deficient.
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Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.
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Just as the value of a house lies in its location, The value of a mind lies in its depth, The value of giving lies in the presence of a generous spirit, The value of words lies in their reliability.
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The sage governs by emptying senses and filling bellies.
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A good person is the bad person's teacher. A bad person is the good person's task.
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Is not the action of nature like the stretching of a bow? The high, it pulls down the low, it lifts up It takes from what is in excess In order to make good of what is deficient. Who can take what they have in excess and offer it to others?
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Thirty spokes meet in the hub. Where a wheel isn't is where it's useful. Hollowed out, clay makes a pot. Where the pots 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.
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When one gives whatever one can without restraint, the barriers of individuality break down. It no longer becomes possible to tell whether it is the student offering himself to the teacher, or the teacher offering herself to the student. One sees only two immaculate beings, reflecting one another like a pair of brilliant mirrors.
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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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Fine words are traded. Noble deeds gain respect. But people who are not good, why abandon them?
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Tao loves and nourishes all things, but does not dominate it over them.
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If you tell me, I will listen. If you show me, I will see. If you let me experience, I will learn!
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