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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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Zhuangzi
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Zhuang Zi
Chuang Tzŭ
Chuang Tzu
Chuangtzŭ
Chuangtzu
Zhuang Zhou
Chuang Chou
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More quotes by Zhuangzi
Who knows when the end is reached? Death may be the beginning of life. How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his way home? How do I know that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?
Zhuangzi
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.
Zhuangzi
Study is to study what cannot be studied. Undertaking means undertaking what cannot be undertaken. Philosophizing is to philosophize about what cannot be philosophized about. Knowing that knowing is unknowable is true perfection.
Zhuangzi
Transmit the established facts do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.
Zhuangzi
I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.
Zhuangzi
...the ten thousand things belong to one storehouse and life and death share the same body.
Zhuangzi
Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?
Zhuangzi
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.
Zhuangzi
The greatest tragedy that can befall a person is the atrophy of his mind.
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
All men know the use of the useful, but nobody knows the use of the useless. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so that I can have a word with him?
Zhuangzi
Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise. By not being wise you will become wise later.
Zhuangzi
I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river.
Zhuangzi
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
The raven hatches its young the fish spew forth their eggs the slim-waisted wasp transforms, and when a younger brother comes along the elder brother weeps. For too long I have not been able to work in harmony with these changes. So, given that I did not play my part in harmony with others, how could I expect to change people?
Zhuangzi
He who knows the activities of Nature lives according to Nature.
Zhuangzi
Do not let the artificial obliterate the natural do not let will obliterate destiny do not let virtue be sacrificed to fame.
Zhuangzi
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
Birth is not the beginning, Death is not the end.
Zhuangzi
Look at this window: it is nothing but a hole in the wall, but because of it the whole room is full of light. So when the faculties are empty, the heart is full of light.
Zhuangzi
