If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.

不可为也，不可执也。 为 者败之

Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching

Buy the Tao Te Ching at Amazon Buy the Tao Te Ching at Amazon
Read the Tao Te Ching at MIT's classics department website

More information about this quote

Topic

Letting go Grasping Attachment

Author

Lao Tzu

Source

Tao Te Ching

Genre

Philosophical literature Religious literature

Statement Type

Paradox Zen koan

Language

Chinese

Time

400 BC 400s BC 5th century BC

Occupation

Philosopher Writer

From

China Asia

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. 4th century BC, ch. 29.

Current Citation

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao. Translated by John Minford. Penguin, 2019.

Related Quotes

Below are one or more quotes that share at least one tag with the quote at the top of the page

Another quote by Lao Tzu

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching

Buy the Tao Te Ching at Amazon Buy the Tao Te Ching at Amazon
Read the Tao Te Ching at MIT's classics department website
More information about this quote
Topic
Patience All in good time Nature Teleology

Author

Lao Tzu
Source
Tao Te Ching
Genre
Philosophical literature Religious literature
Language
Chinese
Time
400 BC 400s BC 5th century BC
Authentication Score 0
Original Citation

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. 4th century BC, ch. 37.

Current Citation

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao. Translated by John Minford. Penguin, 2019.

Another quote from the 5th century BC

Man is the measure of all things.

Protagoras

Quoted in Theaetetus, by Plato

Buy Theaetetus at Amazon Buy Theaetetus at Amazon
Read Theaetetus at Project Gutenberg
More information about this quote
Topic
Nature of man
Speaker
Protagoras

Author

Plato
Source
Theaetetus
Medium
Philosophical dialogue
Genre
Philosophical literature
Language
Greek
Time
420 BC 420s BC 5th century BC
Era
Classical antiquity
Authentication Score 2
Original Citation

Plato. Theatetus. c. 400 B. C., l. 152a.

Current Citation

Plato. Theatetus. Translated by Robin H. Waterfield. Penguin, 1987, l. 152a.

Another quote originally in Chinese

The policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science; it is designed to enable a socialist culture to thrive in our land.

Mao Zedong

Read this speech at marxists.org
More information about this quote
Topic
Battle of ideas
Speaker
Mao Zedong
Source
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Medium
Speech
Genre
Political speech
Statement Type
Metaphor, analogy and simile
Language
Chinese
Time
1957 1950s 20th century
Authentication Score 2
Original Citation

Mao Zedong. "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." People's Daily, 19 June 1957.

Current Citation

Mao Zedong. "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung. Volume 5. Translated by People's Publishing House. Foreign Languages P, 1977, sect. 8.

Another quote of the following type Paradox

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.

George Santayana

Introduction to Spinoza's Ethics

More information about this quote
Topic
Overcoming fear

Author

George Santayana
Source
Introduction to Spinoza's Ethics
Genre
Philosophical literature
Statement Type
Paradox
Language
English
Time
1910 1910s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Citation

Santayana, George. Introduction. Ethics, by Spinoza, translated by A. Boyle. Everyman's Library, 1910, introduction.