Categoria: Tao Te Ching
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Tao Te Ching XXVI
As the heavy must be the foundation of the light, So quietness is lord and master of activity. Truly, “A man of consequence though he travels all day Will not let himself be separated from his baggage-wagon, However magnificent the view, he sits quiet and dispassionate”. How much less, then, must be the lord of…
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Tao Te Ching XV
Of old those that were the best officers of Court Had inner natures subtle, abstruse, mysterious, penetrating, Too deep to be understood. And because such men could not be understood I can but tell of them as they appeared to the world: Circumspect they seemed, like one who in winter crosses a stream, Watchful, as…
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Tao Te Ching XXXV
He who holding the Great From goes about his work in the empire Can go about his, yet do no harm. All is peace, quietness and security. Sound of music, smell of good dishes Will make the passing stranger pause. How difference the words that Tao gives forth! So thin, so flavourless! If one looks…
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Tao Te Ching LII
That which was the beginning of all things under heaven We may speak of as the “mother” of all things. He who apprehends the mother Thereby knows the sons. And he who has known the sons, Will hold all the tighter to the mother, And to the end of his days suffer no harm; “Block…
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Tao Te Ching LXVIII
The best charioteers do not rush ahead; The best fighters do not make displays of wrath. The greatest conqueror wins without joining issue; The best user of men acts as though he were their inferior. This is called the power that comes of not contending, Is called the capacity to use men, The secret of…
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Tao Te Ching XXXIII
To understand others is to have knowledge; To understand oneself is to be illumined. To conquer others needs strength; To conquer oneself is harder still. To be content with what one has is to be rich. He that works through violence may get his way; But only what stays in its place Can endure. When…
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Tao Te Ching XVI
Push far enough towards the Void, Hold fast enough to Quietness, And of the ten thousand things none but can be worked on by you. I have beheld them, whither they go back. See, all things howsoever they flourish Return to the root from which they grew. This return to the root is called Quietness;…
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Tao Te Ching XXXVI
What is in the end to be shrunk Must first be stretched. Whatever is to be weakened Must begin by being made strong. What is to be overthrown Must begin by being set up. He who would be a taker Must begin as a giver. This is called “dimming” one’s light. It is thus that…
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Tao Te Ching LIII
He who has the least scrap of sense, Once he has got started on the great highway has nothing to fear So long as he avoids turnings. For great highways are safe and easy. But men love by-paths. So long as Court is in order They are content to let their fields run to weed…
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Tao Te Ching LXIX
The strategists have the sayings: “When you doubt your ability to meet the enemy’s attack, Take the offensive yourself” And “If you doubt your ability to advance an inch, then retreat a foot”. This latter is what we call to march without moving, To roll the sleeve, but present no bare arm, The hand that…
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Tao Te Ching XLII
Tao gave birth to the One; The One gave birth successively to two things, Three things, up to ten thousand. These ten thousand creatures cannot turn their backs to the shade Without having the sun on their bellies, And it is on this blending of the breaths that their harmony depends. To be orphaned, needy,…
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Tao Te Ching XVII
Of the highest the people merely know that such a one exists; The next they draw near to and praise. The next they shrink from, intimidated; but revile. Truly, “It is by not believing people that you turn them into liars”. But from the Sage it is so hard at any price to get a…
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Tao Te Ching XXXVII
Tao never does; Yet through it all things are done. If the barons and kings would but possess themselves of it, The ten thousand creatures would at once be transformed. And if having been transformed they should desire to act, We must restrain them by the blankness of the Unnamed. The blankness of the Unnamed…
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Tao Te Ching LIV
What Tao plants cannot be plucked, What Tao clasps, cannot slip. By its virtue alone can one generation after another carry on the ancestrial sacrifice. Apply it to yourself and by its power you will be freed from dross. Apply it to your household and your household shall thereby have abundance. Apply it to the…
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Tao Te Ching LXX
My words are very easy to understand And very easy to put into practice. Yet no one under heaven understands them; No one puts them into practice. But my words have an ancestry, my deeds have a lord; And it is precisely because men do not understand this That they are unable to understand me.…
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Tao Te Ching II
Se Tudo sob o Céu vê o belo como belo, Isso é mau. Se todos vemos o bom como bom, Isso não é bom. Pois existência e não existência dão vida uma a outra, O fácil e o difícil produzem-se, O longo e o curto dão-se forma, O alto e o baixo se contrapõem, Som…
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Tao Te Ching XVIII
Quando o grande Tao é esquecido, bondade e piedade aparecem. Quando a inteligência do corpo declina, esperteza e conhecimento dão um passo à frente. Quando não há paz na família, a piedade filial começa. Quando o país cai em caos, patriotismo nasce. It was when the Great Way declined That human kindness and morality arose;…
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Tao Te Ching XXXVIII
The man of highest “power” does not reveal himself as a possessor of “power”; Therefore he keeps his “power”. The man of inferior “power” cannot rid it of the appearance of “power”; Therefore he is in truth without “power”. The man of highest “power” neither acts nor is there any who so regards him; The…
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Tao Te Ching LV
The impunity of things fraught with the “power” May be likened to that of an infant. Poisonous insects do not sting it, Nor fierce beasts seize it, Nor clawing birds maul it, Its bones are soft, its sinews weak; but its grip is strong. Not yet to have known the union of male and female,…
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Tao Te Ching LXXI
“To know when one does not know is best. To think one knows when one does not know is a dire disease. Only he who recognizes this disease as a disease Can cure himself of the disease. The Sage’s way of curing disease Also consists in making people recognize their diseases as diseases And thus…