By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

The cautious seldom err.

He who will not economize will have to agonize.

Study the past if you would define the future.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than yourself.

To see a student who has lived for a whole year without learning anything is a grief.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

In archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Virtue without learning is like a diamond in the rough.

If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.

Study as if you were never to master it; as if in fear you were losing it.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

He who is not in the habit of saying 'What shall I think of this? What shall I think of this?'—I can indeed do nothing with him!

The master said: 'At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven.'

To know one's self is the true direction of life.

Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals?

When walking with two other people, I will always find my teacher among them.

I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.

Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages.

Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly.

To cultivate personal life, one must first rectify the heart.

Things have their roots and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning.

To know what is first and what is last will lead near to the Way.

When the root is neglected, what should spring from it cannot be well ordered.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

If the teacher is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings, but cannot fly.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.

A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

I awoke from my sleep to find that all my masks had been stolen... and for the first time the sun kissed my naked face.

For when you seek gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, 'Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.'

For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

You are far greater than your knowledge, and more immense than your dreams.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

For I have learned that every heart will get What it is praying for Most.

Why give your heart to that which is bound to turn into dust? Give your heart to the eternal Spring.

O seeker, wash away your scholarly book-learning with the wine of divine ecstasy; the heart knows secrets no pen can ever write.

In the market of the world, everyone sells illusions. Come to the tavern of the heart where truth is given freely.

A single sip of cosmic love is worth more than a thousand kingdoms of worldly glory.

The caravan of life passes in the blink of an eye; seize this sacred moment to love wholeheartedly.

The treasure you travel across continents to find is buried under the floorboards of your own chest.

The cup of contemplation is never empty for the soul that thirsts for truth.

The cup of wine in the hand of the sage is the mirror that reflects the whole universe.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Washing the dishes is at once a means and an end. We wash the dishes to wash the dishes.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

We only need to be awake, alive in the present moment.

There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.

If while washing dishes, we only think of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way... we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.

In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink.

If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either.

While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands.

Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of our life.

Come back to the present moment and touch life deeply.

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.