Quotes to inspire and reflect

But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.

Develop flexibility and you will be firm; cultivate yielding and you will be strong.

It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

The contented person finds rest in death, and for the greedy person, death puts an end to his long list of desires.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.

Once you transcend the external differences, anything can be merged with anything.

To solve a problem, you need to remove the cause, not the symptom.

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.

The menu is not the meal.

If you can dispense with reputation, then you are free from care. Reputation is only a visitor, but reality is here to stay.

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

A person with a mind is bound to be filled with conceptions. These conceptions prevent him from knowing things directly, so a person with a mind shall never really know.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

The Universal Harmony records various wonders, and it says: "When the P'eng journeys to the southern darkness, the waters are roiled for three thousand li. He beats the whirlwind and rises ninety thousand li, setting off on the sixth month gale." Wavering heat, bits of dust, living things blowing each other about – the sky looks very blue. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and has no end? When the bird looks down, all he sees is blue too.

The freest human being is not one who acts on reasons he has chosen for himself, but one who never has to choose. Rather than agonizing about alternatives he responds effortlessly to situations as they arise. He lives not as he chooses but as he must.

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.

Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes. . . .But when the mind becomes conscious, when the rate of evolution speeds up, then you have to be careful. Careful of the world. You must learn the way. You must learn the skills, the art, the limits. A conscious mind must be part of the whole, intentionally and carefully--as the rock is part of the whole unconsciously. Do you see? Does it mean anything to you?

“Tezyeme," he said, which meant something on the order of "it is happening the way it is supposed to happen.

It can be passed on, but not received. It can be obtained, but not seen.

Sometimes I'd yell questions at the rocks and trees, and across gorges, or yodel - "What is the meaning of the void?" The answer was perfect silence, so I knew.

Division and differentiation are the processes by which things are created. Since things are emerging and dissolving all the time, you cannot specify the point when this division will stop.

To be whole is to be part; true voyage is return

When a man does not dwell in self, then things will of themselves reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo.

Taoism is the profoundest nonconformism that has ever been evolved anywhere in the world, at any time in history; essentially it is rebellion.

If a branch is too rigid, it will break. Resist, and you will perish. Know how to yield, and you will survive.

This implies that the art of life is more like navigation than warfare, for what is important is to understand the winds, the tides, the currents, the seasons, and the principles of growth and decay, so that one's actions may use them and not fight them.

As long as some suffer The River Flows Forever As long as there is pain The River Flows Forever As strong as a smile can be The River will Flow Forever

Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

To light a candle is to cast a shadow...

Shape clay into a vessel ; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room ; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore benefit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.

When you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.

Of several bodies all equally larger and distant, that most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.

O time! swift devourer of all created things!

I would venture to affirm that a man cannot attain excellence if he satisfy the ignorant and not those of his own craft, and if he be not ‘singular’ or ‘distant,’ or whatever you like to call him.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever lasting.

The earth is moved from its position by the weight of a tiny bird resting upon it.

We should not desire the impossible.

The length of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height.

The eye encompasses the beauty of the whole world.