Lao Tzu - People Quotes

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If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked.

Lao Tzu
To know how little one knows is to have genuine knowledge. Not to know how little one knows is to be deluded. Only those who know when they are deluded can free themselves from such delusion. The intelligent people are not deluded, because they know and accept their ignorance as ignorance, and thereby have genuine knowledge.

Lao Tzu
Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious.

Lao Tzu
The people suffer from famine because of the multitude of taxes consumed by their superiors. It is through this that they suffer famine.

Lao Tzu
I am good to people who are good. I am also good to people who are not good. Because Virtue is goodness.

Lao Tzu
Those who make their living by collecting taxes cause the people to starve; when the people starve, the tax collectors, having no one to tax, starve also

Lao Tzu
I will be fond of keeping still, and the people will of themselves become correct.

Lao Tzu
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams? Because it lies below them... If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind. In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed...

Lao Tzu
Although most people spend their entire lives following this biological impulse (i.e. the sex drive), it is only a tiny portion of our beings.... If we remain obsessed with seeds and eggs, we are married to the fertile reproductive valley of the Mysterious Mother but not to her immeasurable heart and all-knowing mind.

Lao Tzu
In the government of the sage,
He keeps their hearts vacuous,
Fills their bellies,
Weakens their ambitions,
And strengthens their bones,
He always causes his people to be without knowledge [cunning] or desire,
And the crafty to be afraid to act.

Lao Tzu
The people starve because those above them eat too much tax-grain. That is the only reason why they starve.

Lao Tzu
Let people hold on to these:
Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

Lao Tzu
Why do the people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take death lightly.

Lao Tzu
When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, There arises the recognition of evil.

Lao Tzu
The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer the people become.

Lao Tzu
Heaven and earth are not humane
They regard all things as straw dogs.
The sage is not humane.
He regards all people as straw dogs.

Lao Tzu
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

Lao Tzu
Let there be a small country with few people.... Though neighboring communities overlook one another and the crowing of cocks and barking of dogs can be heard, Yet the people there may grow old and die without ever visiting one another.

Lao Tzu
Do not imagine that an integral being has the ambition of enlightening the unaware or raising worldly people to the divine realm. To her, there is no self and other, and hence no one to be raised; no heaven and hell, and hence no destination.

Lao Tzu
The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.

Lao Tzu