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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

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Zhuangzi
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Peking
Zhuang Zi
Chuang Tzŭ
Chuang Tzu
Chuangtzŭ
Chuangtzu
Zhuang Zhou
Chuang Chou
Whether
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Nothing
Existed
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Suddenly
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Existence
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More quotes by Zhuangzi

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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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The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.
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But you now, you wear your soul on your sleeve, exhausting your energy, propping yourself up on a tree, mumbling, or bent over your desk, asleep. Heaven gives you a form and you wear it out by pointless argument.
Zhuangzi
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Make your will one! Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty- and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.
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The fish trap exists because of the fish: once you have gotten the meanings, you can forget the words.
Zhuangzi
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If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way.
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The Portal of God is nonexistence. All things sprang from nonexistence. Existence could not make existence existence. It must have proceeded from nonexistence, and nonexistence and nothing are one. Herein is the abiding place of the sage.
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Everything has what is innate,everything has what is necessary.
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The saying goes, 'The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.' This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up.
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Am I a human dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a human?
Zhuangzi
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The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.
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Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.
Zhuangzi
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It is only when the formed learns from the unformed that there is understanding.
Zhuangzi
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Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth.
Zhuangzi
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Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.
Zhuangzi
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Compare birth with death, compare death with life compare what is possible with what is not possible and compare what is not possible with what is possible because there is, there is not, and because there is not, there is.
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Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in word or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence Tao is apprehended.
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Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.
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There is no bandit so powerful as Nature. The interaction of the positive and the negative principles, which produces the visible universe. In the whole universe there is no escape from it.
Zhuangzi
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To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.
Zhuangzi