The Way is like an empty vessel That yet may be drawn from Without ever needing to be filled. It is bottomless；the very progenitor of all things in the world. In it all sharpness is blunted，All tangles untied，All glare tempered，All dust smoothed. It is like a deep pool that never dries. Was it too the […]
It is because every one under Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty，that the idea of ugliness exists. And equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue，this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness. For truly‘Being and Not-being grow out of one another；Difficult and easy complete one another. Long and short test one another；High and low determine […]
The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way；The names that can be named are not unvarying names. It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang；The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures，each after its kind. Truly，‘Only he that rids himself forever of desire can see […]