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I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
Zhuangzi
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Zhuangzi
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Zhuang Zi
Chuang Tzŭ
Chuang Tzu
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Zhuang Zhou
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Taoism
More quotes by Zhuangzi
Words exist because of meaning once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.
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Those who realise their folly are not true fools.
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Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their TAO. But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectical skill that his may be made clear. The true sage will have none of these.
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Am I a human dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a human?
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My description of wisdom has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is to do with being wise in one's own virtue, nothing more. My description of being has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is that one should be led by one's innate nature, nothing more.
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A path is made by walking on it.
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All existing things are really one. We regard those that are beautiful and rare as valuable, and those that are ugly as foul and rotten. The foul and rotten may come to be transformed into what is rare and valuable, and the rare and valuable into what is foul and rotten.
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When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.
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When deeds and words are in accord, the whole world is transformed.
Zhuangzi
Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
Zhuangzi
Being is thoughtless-beyond and beneath all categories of thought. Expression is the realization of creative thought. Being is still expression, moving. But then if I do not strive, who will?
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When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.
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Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.
Zhuangzi
True depth of understanding is wide and steady, Shallow understanding is lazy and wandering, Words of wisdom are precise and clear
Zhuangzi
The true man breathes with his heels.
Zhuangzi
There is danger for the eye in seeing too clearly, danger for the ear in hearing too sharply and danger to the heart from caring too greatly.
Zhuangzi
Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!
Zhuangzi
Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.
Zhuangzi
Human life is limited, but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in pursuit of the limitless is fatal and to presume that one really knows is fatal indeed!
Zhuangzi
If there is existence, there must be non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, there must have been a time before that - when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or non-existence?
Zhuangzi
