Those who follow the Tao are of one with the Tao. Those who follow virtue are of one with virtue.

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Once upon a time, I dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. Suddenly I awoke, and there I was, unmistakably Zhuangzi. But I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Flow with whatever may happen, and keep your mind free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

All men know the usefulness of the useful, but nobody knows the usefulness of the useless.

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.

When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. When the heart is right, 'for' and 'against' are forgotten.

A path is made by walking on it.

Great wisdom is generous; small wisdom is contentious. Great speech is quiet; small speech is noisy.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing, it refuses nothing, it receives but does not keep.

Those who follow the Dao turn away from self-interest and look to the source of all things.

When there is no peace within ourselves, it is vain to seek it from without.

To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right.

A dog is not considered good at barking, and a man is not considered wise at speaking.

Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know.

The gnarled oak tree that no carpenter wants to cut down lives out its natural years in peace.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.

The frog in the well cannot conceive of the ocean, for it is limited by the narrowness of its domain.

The summer insect cannot conceive of ice, for it is bound to a single season.

Do not be an embodier of fame; do not be a storehouse of schemes; do not be an undertaker of projects; do not be a proprietor of wisdom.

Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

Cook Ding sliced through the ox with his blade finding the hollows and spaces between joints; his knife remained as sharp as if newly whetted.

Where there is space, the blade moves with effortless ease. So too does the spirit that does not force its way.

You look at the fish darting freely in the water and say, 'Look how happy they are.' How do you know? I know it by the joy I feel beside the river.

The torch of chaos and doubt is what the sage steers by.

Do not value the worldly prize of jade and gold above the unblemished integrity of your inner nature.

Great music has the fewest notes; great form is without shape; the Dao hides in nameless stillness.

When the water is still, it reflects the sky and trees with flawless clarity. When the mind is still, it reflects the universe.

A man does not gaze into running water to see his face; he gazes into still water.

Only stillness can impart stillness to others.

The sage leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, and merges with the seamless whole.

Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will surely exhaust yourself.

Cherish what is within you, and close down that which is without, for much knowledge is a curse.

The petty man sacrifices his soul for gain; the knight for fame; the grandee for his clan; the sage for nothing at all.

Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, follow along with things the way they are.

When the pond dries up, the fish huddle together on the mud, spitting moisture on one another to survive. How much better to forget one another in the great rivers and lakes!

Those who cling to forms and rituals are like men who seek their own shadows by running under the blazing sun.

Stop your running, sit in the shade of the tree, and the shadow dissolves on its own.

He who knows the joy of Heaven lives with Heaven's quiet rhythm; in death he changes form with the cosmos.

Do not allow either grief or joy to enter your breast; view transformation as the natural flow of water.

The infant gazes all day without blinking because its focus is not caught in self-conscious calculation.

The sage walks through fire and is not burned, scales the heights and does not tremble, enters the deep and does not drown.

He who rides the natural order of Heaven and Earth and pilots the six elements can roam the infinite without dependency.

Is there anything upon which the truly free man depends? He relies solely on the boundless Dao.

To treat things as things, and not to be treated as a thing by things—this is the true master.

He who is possessed by possessions is a slave to dust.

Fasting of the heart means listening not with the ear, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with the spirit.

Hearing stops with the ears. Thinking stops with the mind. The spirit is an emptiness that waits upon all things.

Look at that empty room: within its bareness, light is born.

Sitting in forgetfulness (Zuowang): I slough off my limbs, dismiss my intellect, and merge with the Great Pervader.

The Dao cannot be heard; what is heard is not the Dao. The Dao cannot be seen; what is seen is not the Dao.

Where is the Dao? There is nowhere it is not. It is in the ant, in the weed, in the broken tile.

The great bell does not chime for itself; it sounds only when struck. The sage acts only when circumstance calls.

To act without striving, to speak without contrivance, to live without vanity—this is walking with Heaven.

When human wisdom tries to improve on nature, it invariably cripples the horse and blinds the hawk.

Let horses run free in the grasslands, let birds soar in the high heavens, and let humans dwell in natural innocence.

The petty man lives for opinions; the noble man lives for truth.

Do not seek to be unique; do not seek to be ordinary. Be simply what the Dao manifests through you.

He who knows he is a fool is not the greatest fool.

The butterfly flutters without knowing it was ever a caterpillar; the soul transforms without clinging to its former husk.

Words are like waves: when agitated by passion, they roar; when quieted by wisdom, they reflect the moon.

Death is simply going home. Why should we weep when a traveler completes his long wanderings?

When Zhuangzi's wife died, Huizi came to mourn and found him singing while drumming on a tub: 'She was not, then she was, now she is transformed again. Why should I disrupt cosmic harmony with tears?'

The universe gave me a body, burdened me with life, eased me with old age, and rests me with death. What makes my life good makes my death good.

He who treats death and life as day and night cannot be grieved by any earthly loss.

The sage hides the world in the world, so that nothing can ever be lost.

When you hide a boat in a valley, a strong man can still steal it in the night. But if you hide the universe in the universe, where could it be taken?

Rest in non-action, and the world will order itself.

The greatest carver leaves no cutting marks.

The greatest virtue is like flowing water that nourishes all things without contending with any.

He who rides on the wind of natural spontaneity reaches heights no wings could ever attain.

To know how to wander without destination is the highest fruit of spiritual attainment.

The Peng bird's wings spread ninety thousand li into the sky, carried by the massive wind beneath it. Great souls require vast skies.

Small birds chirp and laugh from the hedges, asking why the Peng flies so high. The petty mind cannot grasp cosmic horizons.

Live quietly in the hollow of the ancient tree; drink the dew of early morning; have no regard for worldly praise.

The sage does not hoard: the more he gives to others, the more he has; the more he shares, the richer he becomes.

When there is true understanding, debates cease like melting snow.

The greatest debaters leave things unsaid.

He who looks at the Dao through a reed will never see the wide sky.

Set your mind at ease in the great openness; do not calculate advantages and disadvantages.

When the tree falls in the deep forest, it returns to the earth to feed new blossoms. In the Dao, nothing is ever wasted.

The true traveler has no fixed destination and does not hurry to arrive.

Look within: the root of all stillness is already planted in your chest.

When the fisherman casts his line without craving for fish, every catch is a joyful surprise.

Cast off your cleverness, dismantle your intellectual cages, and return to pristine wonder.

The master lives in the world like water in the riverbed: touching every stone, conforming to every contour, yet always moving freely toward the boundless sea.

Carefree wandering is the sacred art of being utterly at home wherever your feet touch the ground.

The sound of silence in the bamboo grove is the Dao whispering directly to the heart.

Do not seek to be praised by the multitude; the hawk does not ask permission from the sparrows to soar.

When the mind is empty of ambition, every mouthful of simple food tastes like divine nectar.

In the midst of bustling cities, the sage preserves a quiet forest within.

The spring breeze gives life to all things without claiming ownership of a single leaf.

Release your grip on past regrets; water that has flowed past the mill cannot turn the wheel again.

He who dances with the rhythms of day and night meets old age with gentle laughter.

The bird does not build its nest on the highest branch to show off, but to protect its young; let your actions arise from genuine need, not vanity.

When you look upon all beings with the eyes of the Dao, there is neither high nor low, neither precious nor vile.

The ultimate joy is to have no joy of the worldly sort; the ultimate praise is to have no praise.

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.