Top 500 Laozi Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.”

— Laozi

Featured in: Teacher Quotes, School Quotes

2. “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habit.”

— Laozi

Featured in: Determination Quotes, Smart Quotes

3. “Health is the greatest possession.”

— Laozi

Featured in: Health Quotes

4. “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

— Laozi

5. “A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.”

— Laozi

6. “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”

— Laozi

7. “If you tell me, I will listen. If you show me, I will see. If you let me experience, I will learn!”

— Laozi

8. “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

— Laozi

9. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”

— Laozi

10. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

— Laozi

11. “Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life. The secret of success is in turning that diary into the best story you possibly can. I wish you Happy New Year and diary full of best stories ever written in your life.”

— Laozi

Featured in: New Year Quotes

12. “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”

— Laozi

13. “Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.”

— Laozi

14. “The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.”

— Laozi

15. “Make your heart like a lake, with calm, still surface, and great depths of kindness.”

— Laozi

16. “Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”

— Laozi

17. “In work, do what you enjoy.”

— Laozi

18. “Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”

— Laozi

19. “Before healing others, heal yourself.”

— Laozi

20. “Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”

— Laozi

21. “Empty your mind of all thoughts.”

— Laozi

22. “True power is stillness within motion.”

— Laozi

23. “The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”

— Laozi

24. “People aren’t against you; they are for themselves. The most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later. He who conquers others is strong, he who conquers himself is mighty.”

— Laozi

25. “Practice not-doing and everything will fall into place.”

— Laozi

26. “The Tao of the sage is work without effort.”

— Laozi

Featured in: Effort Quotes

27. “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say ‘I don’t want to.’”

— Laozi

28. “We are all capable of much more than we think we are.”

— Laozi

29. “Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

— Laozi

30. “At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

— Laozi

31. “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.”

— Laozi

32. “To know and not to do is not yet to know.”

— Laozi

33. “Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.”

— Laozi

34. “When there is no desire, all things are at peace.”

— Laozi

35. “Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil.”

— Laozi

36. “Freedom from desire leads to inner peace.”

— Laozi

37. “If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”

— Laozi

38. “Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness.”

— Laozi

39. “Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.”

— Laozi

40. “One who believes in himself has no need to convince others.”

— Laozi

41. “If you search everywhere, yet cannot find what you are seeking, it is because what you seek is already in your possession.”

— Laozi

42. “Guns don’t kill people – people do.”

— Laozi

43. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

— Laozi

44. “There is no illusion great than fear.”

— Laozi

45. “If you want to know me, look inside your heart.”

— Laozi

46. “The eternal void is filled with infinite possibilities.”

— Laozi

47. “Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.”

— Laozi

48. “The Great Tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right, all things depend on it to exist, and it does not abandon them. To its accomplishments it lays no claims. It loves and nourished all things, but does not lord it over them.”

— Laozi

49. “There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take the one with a heart.”

— Laozi

50. “To lead people, walk behind them.”

— Laozi