Searching for precious goods leads astray.
The separate parts make no carriage.
The one who rules like the mother lasts long.
Where there is no conflict, there is no fault.
Heaven's net is very vast. It is sparsely meshed, yet nothing slips through.
The progress of the Way seems retreating.
Hold on to the great image, and the whole world follows, follows unharmed, content and completely at peace.
The more sharp weapons people have in a country, the bigger the disorder will be.
If Heaven and Earth are unable to persist, how could man?
The sage honors his part of the settlement, but does not exact his due from others.
Those who know when it is enough will not perish.
If princes and kings were not exalted they might be overthrown.
There was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.
Can you care for the people and rule the country and not be cunning?
Why did the ancients praise the Way? Did they not say it was because you find what you seek and are saved from your wrongdoings?
Heaven's Way is like stretching a bow. The high is lowered and the low is raised. Excess is reduced and deficiency is replenished. Heaven's Way reduces excess and replenishes deficiency. People's Way is not so. They reduce the deficient and supply the excessive.
The highest benevolence acts without purpose.
When the great Tao is abandoned, benevolence and righteousness arise.
Heaven and Earth are not kind. They regard all things as offerings.
Is not the action of nature like the stretching of a bow? The high, it pulls down; the low, it lifts up; It takes from what is in excess In order to make good of what is deficient. Who can take what they have in excess and offer it to others?
Excellent leaders of people lower themselves.
I am wearied, as if I lacked a home to go to.
Other people have more than they need, I alone seem wanting.
Behave simply and hold on to purity.
A tree as wide as a man's embrace grows from a tiny shoot.
