Top 500 Laozi Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.”

— Laozi

152. “Remember: if you can cease all restless activity, your integral nature will appear.”

— Laozi

153. “Use the light to return to clarity.”

— Laozi

154. “When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.”

— Laozi

155. “The best soldier does not attack. The superior fighter succeeds without violence. The greatest conqueror wins without struggle. The most successful manager leads without dictating. This is intelligent non aggressiveness.”

— Laozi

156. “Thirty spokes meet in the hub. Where a wheel isn’t is where it’s useful. Hollowed out, clay makes a pot. Where the pots not is where it’s useful. Cut doors and windows to make a room. Where the room isn’t, there’s room for you. So the profit in what is, is in the use of what isn’t.”

— Laozi

157. “Softness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immoveable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.”

— Laozi

158. “The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.”

— Laozi

159. “There is a time to go ahead and a time to stay behind. There is a time to breathe easy and time to breathe hard. There is a time to be vigorous and a time to be gentle. There is a time to gather and a time to release. Can you see things as they are And let them be all on their own?”

— Laozi

160. “Use your light, but dim your brightness.”

— Laozi

161. “When the ancient Masters said, “If you want to be given everything, give everything up,” they weren’t using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.”

— Laozi

162. “Knowing that we don’t know it’s humility; thinking that we know what we don’t know, is sickness.”

— Laozi

163. “Mask your brightness. Be at one with the dust of the earth. This is primal union.”

— Laozi

164. “The seed of mystery lies in muddy water. How can I perceive this mystery? Water becomes clear through stillness. How can I become still? By flowing with the stream.”

— Laozi

165. “Take time to listen to what is said without words, to obey the law too subtle to be written, to worship the unnameable and to embrace the unformed.”

— Laozi

166. “ALL things in Nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing. They fulfil their functions and make no claim.”

— Laozi

167. “In the Universe the difficult things are done as if they were easy.”

— Laozi

168. “Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken.”

— Laozi

169. “Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.”

— Laozi

170. “A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.”

— Laozi

171. “Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.”

— Laozi

172. “Nature’s way is simple and easy, but men prefer the intricate and artificial.”

— Laozi

173. “If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come back empty-handed. The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.”

— Laozi

174. “Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?”

— Laozi

175. “Man at his birth is supple and tender, but in death, he is rigid and hard. Thus, suppleness and tenderness accompany life, but rigidity and hardness accompany death.”

— Laozi

176. “He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love.”

— Laozi

177. “The Tao never acts with force, yet there is nothing that it can not do.”

— Laozi

178. “Nurture the spontaneous peaceful life.”

— Laozi

179. “Just as the value of a house lies in its location, The value of a mind lies in its depth, The value of giving lies in the presence of a generous spirit, The value of words lies in their reliability.”

— Laozi

180. “He who knows enough is enough will always have enough.”

— Laozi

181. “The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer the people become.”

— Laozi

182. “Behave simply and hold on to purity.”

— Laozi

183. “Battles are followed by years of famine.”

— Laozi

184. “First and last follow each other.”

— Laozi

185. “Who can rest until the moment of action?”

— Laozi

186. “There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

— Laozi

187. “Those who seek knowledge, collect something every day. Those who seek the Way, let go of something every day.”

— Laozi

188. “Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny. Reversion to destiny is called eternity. Those who know eternity are called enlightened.”

— Laozi

189. “The best people are like water, which benefits all things and does not compete with them. It stays in lowly places that others reject. This is why it is so similar to the Way.”

— Laozi

190. “Sometimes gain comes from losing, and sometimes loss comes from gaining.”

— Laozi

191. “There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontent. And there is no greater disaster than greed.”

— Laozi

192. “If one desires to receive one must first give. This is called profound understanding.”

— Laozi

193. “The value of teaching without words and accomplishing without action is understood by few in the world.”

— Laozi

194. “Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.”

— Laozi

195. “When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.”

— Laozi

196. “Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself.”

— Laozi

197. “The great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao.”

— Laozi

198. “Find a teacher who is an integral being, a beacon who extends his light and virtue with equal ease to those who appreciate him and those who don’t. Shape yourself in his mold, bathe in his nourishing radiance, and reflect it out to the rest of the world.”

— Laozi

199. “The difficult problems in life always start off being simple. Great affairs always start off being small.”

— Laozi

200. “Cultivate virtue in yourself, and it will be true.”

— Laozi