Lao Tzu Quotes

Practice non-action. Work without doing.

Act non-action; undertake no undertaking; taste the tasteless.

To the man who can perfectly practice inaction, all things are possible.

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?

Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone.

Be patient, do nothing, cease striving. We find this advice disheartening and therefore unfeasible because we forget it is our own inflexible activity that is structuring the reality. We think that if we do not hustle, nothing will happen and we will pine away. But the reality is probably in motion and after a while we might take part in that motion. But one can't know.

He is beginning to master wisdom when he tries to learn how not to try.

The master action, to move forward is a form of inaction; being still and quiet.

Movement is only as good as the sense of stillness that you can bring to it to put it into perspective.

The master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.

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.

The command is "Do no work." Just make space. Attend to what is around you. Learn that you don't have to DO to BE. accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming.

Effortlessness means not doing anything, inactivity - AKARMA. Effort means doing much, activity - KARMA. Both have to be there. Do much, but don't be a doer - then you achieve both. Move in the world, but don't be a part of it. Live in the world, but don't let the world live in you. Then the contradiction has been absorbed. Then you are not rejecting anything, not denying anything. Then the whole God has been accepted.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

Do your best and then relax. Let things go on in a natural way, rather than force them.

Without desire there is stillness, and the world settles by itself.

First you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort.

You don't always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that's plenty.

Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by.

You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.

Unending joy is actually closer to us than our own skin, and there is nothing we have to do or get or be to experience it. All we have to do is stop driving it away.

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Lie down and listen to the crabgrass grow The faucet leak, and learn to leave them so.

Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.

Time moves along at its own pace for as long as we are on this planet, and then some. So why try to beat it anymore? Maybe it's better to meet time head on and chill ourselves out so we can exist in harmony with the passing days.