Category Quotations

Zhuangzi says: “Things joined by profit, when pressed by misfortune and danger, will cast each other aside.”

Zhuangzi says: “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”

Zhuangzi says: “The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror – going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing.”

Zhuangzi says: “The one-legged creature is envious of the millipede; the millipede is envious of the snake; the snake is envious of the wind; the wind is envious of the eye; the eye is envious of the heart.”

Zhuangzi says: “The fact is that those who do not see themselves but who see others, who fail to grasp of themselves but who grasp others, take possession of what others have but fail to possess themselves, they are attracted…

Zhuangzi says: “People who excuse their faults and claim they didn’t deserved to be punished – there are lots of them. But those who don’t excuse their faults and admit they didn’t deserve to be spared – they are few.”

Zhuangzi says: “Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to…

Zhuangzi says: “Not to understand is profound; to understand is shallow. Not to understand is to be on the inside; to understand is to be on the outside.”

Zhuangzi says: “Moreover, I have heard that those who are fond of praising men to their faces are also fond of damning them behind their backs.”

Zhuangzi says: “Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the…