When realization of the Tao and authentic presence dims,
We try to be kind and just.
When we over-value reason and learning,
Immense hypocrisy arises.
The sicker the society,
The more loyal true believers.
The more dysfunctional the family,
The more autocratic and subservient.
The more harmful the religion,
The more dogmatic extremists.
The more detrimental the government,
The more fanatic partisans.
“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.”
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“A man may fail in his education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention. A partial education of this sort is as bad as none.”
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“When people lose sight of how to live, they create codes of virtue that give rise to great hypocrisy.”
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“Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.”
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“To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace.”
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“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
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“Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?”
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“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.”
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“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness… To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd.”
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“what a lot of fuss and upheaval the benefactors of humanity have caused.”
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“When springs dry up, fish find themselves in puddles spraying water on each other to keep each other alive. Better to be in a river or lake and oblivious to one another.”
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“When the country is at peace, no one thinks about kindness and the people are free from desire. When the Tao prevails, kindness and justice vanish like the stars fading when the sun appears.”
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“When the directives of the leadership are ignored because of factionalism, laws are broken out of treachery, intellectuals busy themselves fabricating clever deceits, mettlesome men occupy themselves fighting, administrators monopolize authority, petty bureaucrats hold power, and cliques curry favor to manipulate the leadership. Then, even though the nation may seem to exist, the ancients would say it has perished.”
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“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
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“People either neglect the root and focus on the branches or neglect the reality of the branches and focus only on realization.”
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“I weep to see you sitting on this throne, engaging in the wretched business of government.”
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“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
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“Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.”
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“There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.”
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“The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain.”
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“Monarchies quickly becomes Tyrannies, Aristocracies Oligarchies, Democracies degenerate into Anarchy… no precaution can prevent them from sliding into their opposites because of how closely the virtue resembles the vice.”
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“But come bad chance, And we join to'it our strength, And we teach it art and length.”
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“Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.”
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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
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“What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.”
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“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
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“I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance.”
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“We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”
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“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he would be justified in silencing mankind.”
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“Adverse conditions are spiritual friends… Illness is the broom for evil and obscurations. Suffering is the dance of what is.”
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“Nobody blamed the credulity and avarice of the people, – the degrading lust of gain, which had swallowed up every nobler quality in the national character… These things were never mentioned.”
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“if I repent of anything,it is very likely to be my good behavior… Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
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“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
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“‘Well, everybody does it that way, Huck.’ ‘Tom, I am not everybody.’”
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“Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.”
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“Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
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“An education isn’t how much you know… It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.”
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“"God will not look you over for medals, diplomas, or degrees – but for scars."”
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“Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance.”
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“Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”
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“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
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“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
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“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”
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“I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.”
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“You can't say civilization don't advance ... in every war they kill you in a new way”
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“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
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“The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.”
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“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – you’ll be criticized anyway.”
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“History would be worthless to us if it did not teach us to keep on our guard against the natural intolerance of an orthodoxy wielding power.”
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“Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!”
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“Uniformity and freedom are incompatible. Uniformity and mental health are incompatible too. . . . Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed.”
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“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
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“Look at the world today… What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here.”
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“Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.”
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“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
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“We must learn to be different…If Wakan Tanka likes the plants, the animals, even little mice and bugs to do this, how much more will he abhor people being alike, doing the same thing, getting up at the same time, putting on the same kind of store-bought clothes, working in the same office at the same job with their eyes on the same clock and, worst of all, thinking alike all the time.”
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“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”
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“Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.”
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“There are times when Lao Tzu sounds very like Henry David Thoreau, but Lao Tzu was kinder…Lao Tzu know that getting all entangled with the external keeps us from the eternal, but he also understands that sometimes people like to get dressed up.”
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“Getting caught up in a political drama is like getting addicted to a bad soap opera and missing work so you can watch.”
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“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”
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“In the bullshit department… religion easily has the greatest story ever told.”
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“The cause or the virtue that brings about authentic presence is emptying out and letting go. You have to be without clinging… earn authentic presence by letting go, and by giving up personal comfort and fixed mind.”
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“Everything is compartmentalized, so you can never experience things completely… packaged food, packaged vacations, package deals of all kinds. There is no room to experience doubtlessness in that world… no room to experience reality fully and properly.”
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“Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do - nothing to kill or die for, no religions too.”
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“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.”
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“If you dream that you are flying and continue to believe that you can fly even after you wake up, that becomes a problem.”
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Comments (1)
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Shan Dao
7 years ago
The translation of this chapter probably strays from the literal more than any other here. Rather than “stray,” maybe better to say, “amplify.” Though hopefully true to the sense, the last 8 lines amplify the original text and can’t be found in the actual words.
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