Lao Tzu - Man Quotes

17 Sourced Quotes

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When armies are mobilized and issues joined, The man who is sorry over the fact will win.

Lao Tzu
Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools. He uses them only when he has no choice.

Lao Tzu
What man has more than enough and gives it to the world? Only the man of Tao.

Lao Tzu
The truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface.

Lao Tzu
What is a good man? A teacher of a bad man. What is a bad man? A good man's charge?

Lao Tzu
In the Way of Heaven, there is no partiality of love; it is always on the side of the good man.

Lao Tzu
Without going out-of-doors, one can know all he needs to know. Without even looking out of his window, one can grasp the nature of everything. Without going beyond his own nature, one can achieve ultimate wisdom. Therefore, the intelligent man knows all he needs to know without going away, And sees all he needs to see without looking elsewhere, And does all he needs to do wihout undue exertion.

Lao Tzu
My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them.

Lao Tzu
A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms grows from a downy tip; A terrace nine stories high rises from level earth; A journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath one's feet.

Lao Tzu
Man, when living, is soft and tender; when dead, he is hard and tough. All animals and plants when living are tender and delicate; when dead they become withered and dry. Therefore it is said: the hard and tough are parts of death; the soft and tender are parts of life.

Lao Tzu
Tao is the storehouse of all things.
It is the good man's treasure and the bad man's refuge.

Lao Tzu
Man at his birth is supple and tender, but in death, he is rigid and hard. Thus, suppleness and tenderness accompany life, but rigidity and hardness accompany death.

Lao Tzu
The best [man] is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in [lowly] places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.

Lao Tzu
The Way of Heaven has no favorites.
It is always with the good man.

Lao Tzu
He who has achieved this state Is unconcerned with friends and enemies, With good and harm, with honor and disgrace. This therefore is the highest state of man.

Lao Tzu
The good man is the teacher of the bad, And the bad is the material from which the good may learn. He who does not value the teacher, Or greatly care for the material, Is greatly deluded although he may be learned. Such is the essential mystery.

Lao Tzu
The man of superior virtue is not [conscious of] his virtue,
And in this way he really possesses virtue.
The man of inferior virtue never loses [sight of] his virtue,
And in this way he loses his virtue.

Lao Tzu