Top 244 Quotes & Sayings by Zhuangzi - Page 2

The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.

If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning!

Those who realise their folly are not true fools.

Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

When the heart is right, "for" and "against" are forgotten.

The ultimate happiness is doing nothing.

Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.

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.

An archer competing for a clay vessel shoots effortlessly, his or her skill and concentration unimpeded. If the prize is changed to a brass ornament, the hands begin to shake. If it is changed to gold, he or she squints as if going blind. The abilities do not deteriorate, but belief in them does, as he or she allows the supposed value of an external reward to cloud the vision.

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.

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.

When deeds and words are in accord, the whole world is transformed.

Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.

Breathing control gives man strength, vitality, inspiration, and magic powers.

Great knowledge is universal. Small knowledge is limited. Great words are inspiring; small words are chatter.

Those who follow the Tao are of clear mind. They do not load their mind with anxieties and are flexible in their adjustment to external conditions.

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror.

Therefore, the truly great man, although he does not injure others, does not credit himself with charity and mercy (these are natural to him). He does not seek gain, but does not despise his followers who do. He struggles not for wealth, but does not take credit for leaving it alone... The ranks and emoluments of the world are to him no cause for joy, it's punishments and shame no cause for disgrace.

You are still guided by your expectations.

When you are identified with the One, all things will be complete to you.

All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.

If one is true to one's inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?

Although things seem to be sometimes going up and sometimes descending, sometimes slipping away, nevertheless there is a reality, the same today as in the past. It does not change, for nothing can affect it. Could we not say it is one great harmony? So why shouldn't we ask about it.

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.

Those that think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues; those that seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame; those that cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid of losing them. When they let them go, they are grieved and they will not look at a single example, from which they might perceive the folly of their restless pursuits - such men are under the doom of heaven.

The true man breathes with his heels.

Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, follow along with things the way they are, and make no room for personal views-then the world will be governed.

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?

The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate, fail to see.

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.

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.

You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, the creature of a season.

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.

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?

The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he is going, and stops without knowing what he is doing. He merges himself within the surroundings and moves along with it. These are the principles of mental hygiene.

Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone

Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way, and forget that the going is easy.

Why don’t you try wandering with me to the Palace of Not-Even-Anything

Tao is obscured when men understand only one pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest. The pivot of Tao passes through the center where all affirmations and denials converge. He who grasps the pivot is at the still-point from which all movements and oppositions can be seen in their right relationship... Abandoning all thought of imposing a limit or taking sides, he rests in direct intuition.

He who regards all things as one is a companion of Nature.

I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.

He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul.

Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.

Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that, you will probably come out all right.

One whose inner being is fixed upon such greatness emits a Heavenly glow. Even though he has this Heavenly glow, others will see him as just a man. Someone who has reached this point will begin to be consistent.

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.

Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, find no place in that man's breast; for to him all creation is ONE. And all things being thus united in ONE, his body and limbs are but as dust of the earth, and life and death, beginning, and end, are but as night and day, and cannot destroy his peace. How much less such trifles as gain or loss, misfortune or good fortune?

People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?

The World is Large - Its beauty indescrible.

The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.

When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets - He is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting- And the need to win drains him of power.

The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.

As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not quiet because quietness is said to be good. He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disturb his quietude. When water is still, one's beard and eyelashes are reflected in it. A skilled carpenter uses it in a level to obtain a measurement. If still water is so clear, how much more are the mental faculties! The mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.

Heaven does nothing: its non-doing is its serenity. Earth does nothing: its non-doing is its rest. From the union of these two non-doings All actions proceed. All things are made. How vast, how invisible This coming-to-be! All things come from nowhere! How vast, how invisible No way to explain it! All beings in their perfection Are born of non-doing. Hence it is said: Heaven and earth do nothing Yet there is nothing they do not do. Where is the man who can attain To this non-doing?

To be constant is to be useful. To be useful is to realize one's true nature. Realization of one's true nature is happiness. When one reaches happiness, one is close to perfection.

Calculate what man knows and it cannot compare to what he doesn't know. Calculate the time he is alive and it cannot compare to the time before he was born. Yet man takes something so small and tries to exhaust the dimensions of something so large!

Good fortune is as light as a feather, but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of it's way.

The mind remains undetermined in the great Void. Here the highest knowledge is unbounded. That which gives things their thusness cannot be delimited by things. So when we speak of 'limits', we remain confined to limited things. The limit of the unlimited is called 'fullness.' The limitlessness of the limited is called 'emptiness.' Tao is the source of both. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness

Cherish that which is in you and shut out that which is without, for much knowledge is a curse.

Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.