The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

When drinking water, never forget the source of the spring.

The foolish old man who moved mountains did so by removing one stone at a time.

Misfortune may conceal a blessing, just as fortune may harbor sorrow.

Water that is pure to an extreme harbors no fish; a mind that is excessively demanding harbors no friends.

A journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your very feet.

A jade stone cannot be polished without friction, nor a person perfected without trials.

Dig the well before you are parched with thirst.

Do not fear growing slowly; fear only standing still.

When the wind of change blows, some build walls while others build windmills.

Better to light a single candle than to sit in bitterness and curse the dark.

Learning is like rowing a boat upstream; not to advance is to drop back.

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.

An inch of time is an inch of gold, but ten thousand ounces of gold cannot buy back an inch of time.

The frog sitting at the bottom of the deep well believes the sky is only as wide as its mouth.

The tongue never slips when the heart is quiet.

If you want one year of prosperity, plant seeds. If ten years, plant trees. If a hundred years, cultivate people.

A single conversation with a wise person is worth more than ten years of solitary study.

He who blames others has a long journey ahead; he who blames himself is halfway home; he who blames no one has arrived.

Good medicine tastes bitter to the tongue, yet it cures the sickness; faithful counsel sounds harsh to the ear, yet it rectifies the life.

One generation plants the cedar trees; another generation enjoys the shade.

He who is content with what he has is already the richest man in the province.

The mountain does not bow to the storm, yet it allows the white clouds to drape gently over its shoulders.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

A bird does not sing because it has a question; it sings because it has a song.

The bamboo bends before the howling wind, and so it survives the hurricane unbowed.

He who returns good for evil is like the sandalwood tree that perfumes the axe that wounds it.

Careful deliberation before taking a step saves ten thousand paces of wandering in the dark.

Misfortune enters through the mouth; disease enters through the mouth.

A closed mind is like a closed book: nothing more than a dense block of wood.

A tree with deep, unyielding roots smiles when the tempest roars through the forest.

To see what is right and not do it is the supreme want of courage.

The silence of the wise speaks far louder than the clamor of a thousand fools.

When you stand upon the highest mountain summit, the deepest valleys no longer seem terrifying.

Habits formed in the green days of youth become as unyielding as iron in old age.

To know and not to act is not yet to truly know.

The water that carves through the canyon does so not through fury, but through unceasing persistence.

Governing a large household is like frying a delicate small fish: turn it too frequently and it falls apart.

Those who seek only gold along the mountain stream walk right past the sacred water.

Control your temper in the early morning, and the entire day will flow like a peaceful river.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

What you seek is seeking you.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.