Tao Te Ching
The Way and its Power
By Lao Tzu
Trans: Arthur Waley
Our favorite of the older versions, Waley seems to understand more of the sense than most. Though sometimes we had strong disagreements, his commentaries remain clear and insightful.
Quotes from The Way and its Power
“By admitting the conception of goodness, you are simultaneously creating a conception of badness.”
Chapters:
2. The Wordless Teachings
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“Heaven in our author’s thought is synonymous with Tao. Tao is the absolute, the enduring, the ever-so.”
Chapters:
20. Unconventional Mind
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“The ‘speakers of fine words’… were the itinerant sophists and sages who at that time went round from capital to capital, selling their services to the ruler who offered them the highest inducements.”
Chapters:
62. Basic Goodness
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“The commonest charge brought against Taoists was that of being merely interested in self-perfection without regard for the welfare of the community as a whole. This chapter is devoted to rebutting that charge.”
Chapters:
27. No Trace
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“The whole of my teaching is simply making people recognize that what they mistake for conditions of health are really conditions of disease, that their virtues are really vices, that what they prize is really worthless.”
Chapters:
71. Sick of Sickness
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“This chapter is a bait for realists.”
Chapters:
3. Weak Wishes, Strong Bones
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