Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
Chapter 9Know When to Stop
Chapter 9
If you don’t stop pouring,
The cup will spill over.
If you sharpen a blade too much,
It will soon dull.
If you keep accumulating wealth,
You won’t be able to protect it.
Fame, fortune, pleasure and power
All lead to their own downfall.
The vanity of success
Only brings to harvest
A crop of calamities.
The best recipe for a good life:
Know when to stop.
Commentary
“He advances yet does not seek fame,
He retreats yet does not avoid blame.
He seeks only to preserve the people.”
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“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”
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“The Master understands that there is nothing to understand.”
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“Don’t spoil what you have by desiring what you don’t. Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
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“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.”
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“The rich should help the poor, and the powerful should aid the oppressed. If instead they flaunt their riches and power, they are sure to suffer disaster…When your work is done, if you do not step down, you will meet with harm.”
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“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”
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“Too strong a weapon will cut and destroy its own edge.”
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“Leave your luck while still winning. A fine retreat is as good as a gallant attack…The higher the heap of luck, the greater the risk of a slip…Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration.”
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“A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.”
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“competitiveness and desire for power are the beginnings of beckoning disaster in business and social relations.”
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“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
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“The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.”
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“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
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“Surrounded by treasure, you lie ill at ease; proud beyond measure, you come to your knees”
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“If, however, economic ambitions are good servants, they are bad masters.”
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“There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything more”
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“The source of energy which need not be sought is… that you are rich rather than being enriched by something else.”
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“There's room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill… A working class hero is something to be.”
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“This recipe for long life has been repeated in every civilized culture, and yet it has forever fallen on deaf ears.”
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“Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul.”
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Comments (1)
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Shan Dao
7 years ago
Perhaps the best antidote to our rampant plague of consumerism, never having enough, and addiction to donkey-chasing carrots; this simple poem - if truly heard and understood - could create a social and economic revolution for society and a geyser of happiness for individuals.
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