The torch of doubt and chaos is what the sage steers by.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Doubt
Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water, and fling up their heels…. Such is the real nature of horses.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Horses
The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it rejects nothing. It receives but does not keep.
—Zhuang Zhou
All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color is called object. Among them all, man alone is more than an object. Though, like objects, he has form and semblance, He is not limited to form. He is more. He can attain to formlessness. When he is beyond form and semblance, beyond this and that, where is the comparison with another object? Where is the conflict? What can stand in his way? He will rest in his eternal place which is no-place. He will be hidden in his own unfathomable secret. His nature sinks to its root in the One. His vitality, his power hide in secret Tao.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Mankind, Man
Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Education
The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.
—Zhuang Zhou
Let everything be allowed to do what it naturally does, so that its nature will be satisfied.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Satisfaction
A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Awareness, Self-Knowledge
Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Absence, Happiness
A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Speech, Communication
The sound of water says what I think.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Water, One liners
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.
—Zhuang Zhou
We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Opinion, Opinions
Easy is right. Begin right, and you will be 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.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Perfection
If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Mind, The Mind
Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Luck, Fortune
He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Fame
I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Excitement, Joy
My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Joy
Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but n o one knows the usefulness of the useless.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Usefullness, The Past
By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Ethics
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
—Zhuang Zhou
Topics: Acceptance, Control, Difficulty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Laozi Chinese Philosopher
- Confucius Chinese Philosopher
- Sun Tzu Chinese Military Leader
- Lin Yutang Chinese Author, Philologist
- Jianzhi Sengcan Chinese-Buddhist Monk
- Aristotle Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Xenocrates Greek Philosopher, Scientist
- Plato Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Epictetus Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Ludwig von Mises Austrian Economist
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