Zhuang Zhou

Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in word or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence Tao is apprehended.

Zhuang Zhou

Tao is the source of both fullness and emptiness. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.

Zhuang Zhou

That knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

Zhuang Zhou

The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.

Zhuang Zhou

The enlightened attention rejects nothing nor welcomes anything – like a mirror it responds equally to all.

Zhuang Zhou

The eyes envy the mind.

Zhuang Zhou

The fish trap exists because of the fish: once you have gotten the meanings, you can forget the words.

Zhuang Zhou

The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers – because it lives with those who know how to speak.

Zhuang Zhou

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?

Zhuang Zhou

The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight, hides himself as perfectly as he can.

Zhuang Zhou