other · wisdom

Tao Te Ching

c. 400–300 BCE (traditional: 6th century BCE) · Warring States Period · China

Chapter 1 — The Tao That Can Be Named

1The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
2The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
3The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
4The Named is the mother of all things.
5Therefore let there always be non-being,
6So we may see their subtlety,
7And let there always be being,
8So we may see their outcome.
9The two are the same,
10But after they are produced, they have different names.
11They both may be called deep and profound.
12Deeper and more profound,
13The door of all subtleties!

Chapter 2 — The Relativity of Opposites

14When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty,
15There arises recognition of ugliness.
16When they all know the good as good,
17There arises recognition of evil.
18Therefore, being and non-being produce each other;
19Difficult and easy complement each other;
20Long and short contrast each other;
21High and low rest upon each other;
22Voice and sound harmonize each other;
23Front and behind follow each other.

Chapter 8 — The Virtue of Water

24The highest good is like water.
25Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
26It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
27In dwelling, be close to the land.
28In meditation, go deep in the heart.
29In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
30In speech, be true.
31In ruling, be just.
32In daily life, be competent.
33In action, be aware of the time and the season.
34No fight: no blame.

Chapter 11 — The Uses of Emptiness

35Thirty spokes share the hub of a wheel;
36Yet it is the centre hole that makes the wagon move.
37Shape clay into a vessel;
38Yet it is the space within that makes it useful.
39Cut doors and windows for a room;
40Yet it is the holes which make it useful.
41Therefore profit comes from what is there;
42Usefulness from what is not there.

Chapter 16 — Returning to the Root

43Attain complete emptiness;
44Hold fast to stillness.
45The ten thousand things stir about;
46I watch their return.
47The teeming creatures all return to their separate roots.
48Returning to one's roots is known as stillness.
49This is the Tao of heaven.
50The Tao of heaven is eternal.
51To know the eternal is enlightenment.
52Not to know the eternal is to court disaster.

Chapter 25 — Something Undefined

53There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth.
54How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change,
55Reaching everywhere and in no danger of being exhausted.
56I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Tao.
57Making an effort further to give it a name, I call it The Great.
58Great, it passes on in constant flow. Passing on, it becomes remote.
59Having become remote, it returns.
60Therefore the Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great;
61And the sage king is also great.
62In the universe there are four that are great, and the sage king is one of them.
63Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven;
64Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

Chapter 40 — Return

65Return is the movement of the Tao.
66Yielding is the way of the Tao.
67The ten thousand things are born of being.
68Being is born of not being.

Chapter 56 — Mysterious Union

69One who knows does not speak;
70One who speaks does not know.
71Close the mouth, shut the doors.
72Blunt the sharpness, untangle the knots.
73Soften the glare, settle the dust.
74This is called the mysterious union.
75Hence it is not possible to get close to him,
76Nor is it possible to keep him at a distance.
77It is not possible to do him benefit, nor is it possible to do him harm.
78It is not possible to ennoble him, nor is it possible to humble him.
79Therefore he is the noblest thing under Heaven.

Chapter 76 — The Lesson of Flexibility

80A man is born gentle and weak.
81At his death he is hard and stiff.
82Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
83At their death they are withered and dry.
84Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
85The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
86Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
87A tree that is unbending is easily broken.
88The hard and strong will fall.
89The soft and weak will overcome.

Chapter 78 — The Paradox of Water

90Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
91Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.
92The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.
93Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.
94Therefore the sage says:
95He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people
96Is fit to rule them.
97He who takes upon himself the country's disasters
98Deserves to be king of the universe.
99The truth often sounds paradoxical.

Chapter 81 — The Final Chapter

100Truthful words are not beautiful;
101Beautiful words are not truthful.
102Good men do not argue;
103Those who argue are not good.
104Those who know are not learned;
105The learned do not know.
106The sage never tries to store things up.
107The more he does for others, the more he has.
108The more he gives to others, the greater his own abundance.
109The Tao of heaven is pointed but does no harm.
110The Tao of the sage is work without effort.

notes

The Tao Te Ching ("Classic of the Way and Virtue") is a brief Chinese text of 81 short chapters attributed to the sage Laozi (Old Master), traditionally said to have been written around 500 BCE when Laozi departed westward from the declining Zhou dynasty. Modern scholarship dates the text to the 4th–3rd century BCE, though it may incorporate older oral traditions. It is the foundational text of Taoism and one of the most translated books in history after the Bible. The text is deliberately paradoxical, elliptical, and resistant to interpretation — this difficulty is part of its teaching. The Tao (Way) cannot be defined; the Te (Virtue or Power) flows from alignment with it; the Ching (Classic) is the transmission of this understanding. Central teachings: the Tao is the source and sustainer of all things, ineffable and without qualities; action through non-action (wu wei) — doing by not forcing; the paradox that softness overcomes hardness, yielding overcomes resistance; the unreliability of language and conceptual thought as guides to truth. The Tao Te Ching has influenced Chinese philosophy, politics, and art for two millennia, and in the modern period has shaped Western understandings of paradox, ecology, and contemplative practice. Translation after James Legge, Sacred Books of the East Vol. 39 (1891). Public domain.

currently held: Mawangdui silk manuscripts (c. 168 BCE); Guodian bamboo slips (c. 300 BCE)

CosmologyTaoistPhilosophy

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