Watch carefully over the details of life always avoiding pettiness and elevating your interactions. But take a more tolerant view of others without prying into unpleasant matters. Superficial chattering always annoys and becomes harmful when hovering around unpleasant topics. Often the most wise and skillful response rests in pretending to not notice. Most irritations stay small when not attended to, expand when focused on.

Born with humanity's lawless nature formed from millions of years hunting, fighting, and killing; only culture raises us above this lawless barbarism. Aggressive violence and self-serving greed helped humans survive in a hostile environment with ferocious animals and neighbors. And though now the environment has radically changed, those same basic human impulses remain. Civilization only arises when these remain in check and culture inspires the means for that accomplishment. Culture defines the person, polishes conversation, and creates a more refined, better world.

The small-hearted mob finds it much easier to tear those above them down than to improve and raise themselves up. Because much more numerous, this group spawns multiple prying eyes of malice, malicious tongues of slander, and avid ears searching for faults. Seizing on or inventing a small defect, they propagate demeaning nicknames, cultivate rumors, and destroy reputations. Imagined scandals attract much more interest and belief than more mundane and envy-inspiring accomplishments. Easier to prevent than heal, only careful and skillful vigilance avoids these negative consequences.

The more exceptional your success, the more important to hide it. The more light a torch gives out, the quicker it burns away. The more diverse and accomplished the skills and the more success; the more envy, competition, and ill-will engendered. Many believe that bragging about success and flaunting it brings approval and esteem; but instead, it more often only increases resentment. Avoid the limelight and over-familiarity; avoid the extremes of both jack-of-all-trades and incompetence.

A wise person benefits more from their enemies than a fool does from their friends. While flattery and friendly kindness ignores our faults and mistaken decisions, ill-will points them out and brings them to our attention. This makes flattery more dangerous than hatred and malevolence a more true mirror than affection. This more clear seeing often solves mountains of difficulties that would otherwise arise from our arrogance, delusions, and unrealistic impressions. Like when catching the handle rather than the blade of a knife thrust at us, we can use the threat to increase our caution, our insight, and our integrity.

Envious people—the more polite, the more poisonous—see our good qualities as failings, consider themselves perfect but slander and libel trying to build themselves up. Like lightning striking the highest tree, the more perfect we seem, the more of a target we become for criticism, blame, and backbiting. Sometimes, for these reasons, a little carelessness, neglecting a detail, or permitting an imperfection proves the best strategy.

Integrity grows from the discipline of warding off extremes. Even the most commendable virtue becomes a vice when it goes too far. If you squeeze an orange too much, the juice becomes bitter. Best to stop before drinking the dregs, expanding a theory ad absurdum, bloating enjoyment to decadence, over-pursuing justice until it becomes injustice, indulging pleasure until it becomes pain, milking a cow until it bleeds.

True words aren’t fancy,
Charming words aren’t true.
Good people don’t argue,
Proselytizers aren’t good.
The wise aren’t academic,
Scholars aren’t wise.
The foolish understand the words,
The wise understand the sense.

The wise don’t accumulate, hoard or grasp;
The more they do for others,
The more they fulfill themselves.
The more they give to others,
The more they have.

This way of life leaves no trace,
Sharpens without cutting,
Benefits without causing harm.
The wise act without effort,
Accomplish great things
Without striving or struggle.

Successes of ability and attainment become insipid when clung to and not forgotten. Conceptual identifications and cultural truisms easily become stale attachments that limit and blinder. The more something is heard, the less importance it holds. Semi-relevant "breaking news" easily overshadows much more important but older accounts. For these reasons, always work on reinventing yourself, your opinions, your fortunes. Like the sun, arise reborn each day, if possible each moment.

Imagine a small country without many people.
They have advanced technology
But they aren’t mesmerized by their tools,
Hypnotized by their computers,
Enslaved by their inventions.

Mindful of death and appreciating where they are,
They have no need for long journeys.
They have good transportation systems
But no place people would rather be.
They have defensive weapons
But don’t have to display or use them.
They keep things simple
And are happy with the way things are.

They savor their food,
Enjoy wearing their clothes,
Cherish their homes,
And delight in their customs.
The next country could be close enough
To hear their dogs barking,
Their roosters crowing
But people could get old and die
Without ever making a visit.

Truth is most often seen, rarely heard. Lies flood our ears but avoid our eyes. Conflicts of interest abound; but, deeply buried, become difficult to see. Psychologists have become highly paid advertising executives playing on our emotions and vulnerabilities. Since we live and act based on our trust in the information we receive, some of the most important skills include testing for exaggeration and falsehood. Information inevitably comes to us tinged by the desires and emotions of the people who share it with us, understanding the intentions of our sources can supersede the content. Maintain more skepticism and caution with those who praise than with those who criticize.

If the resolution of a conflict
Leaves resentment and enmity,
How can it be called resolved?
And so the wise
Carefully fulfill their obligations
But aren’t concerned if others do or not.
They play no favorites
And only hold fast to the good.

In excess a vice, in timely moderation a virtue; jovial humor can either degrade integrity or add a pleasant spice to situations. Often the encounters most beneficially taken lightly are the same ones most take too seriously. The wise join in the fun to an extent but never go beyond the boundaries of decorum, rectitude, or decency. Humorous wit can extract us from difficult, socially dangerous encounters as well as amplify the good feelings arising from positive experience. The wise use it judiciously.

Water seems so soft, weak, yielding
Yet easily overcomes the hard and strong.
It has no equal.
The soft overcomes the hard,
The weak overcomes the strong.
This is easy to understand
But rarely put into practice.

And so the wise teach:
Only leaders who take responsibility
For people’s disgrace;
Only leaders who take on people’s misfortunes
Are worthy of leadership.
The truest words always sound wrong.

Following the Tao
Is like stringing a bow:
The high are brought down,
The low are lifted up.

Pull yourself down when too high,
Lift yourself up when too down.
Take from what has too much,
Give to what doesn’t have enough,
This is the way of heaven.
The way of confusion though
Takes from those who have not,
Gives to those who already have too much.

And so the wise
Help without taking credit,
Act without expectation,
Do their work without setting any store by it.
They don’t want their goodness to be seen,
They don’t want to look like they’re better than others,
They don’t sell the value of their good deeds for praise,
They won’t trade their treasure for trinkets.

What separates us often seems so huge while in actuality remaining quite tiny. We can almost always find a quality within ourselves that can harmonize and connect the people we communicate with—a little philosophy with the philosophers, a little humor with the jovial, seriousness with the scientific, saintly with the saints, street-smart with the hustlers. The good will and support of others determines so much of success in life and not much creates good will more than listening, noticing moods, understanding, and corresponding to each unique, personal interaction.

When first born, we’re small and weak;
The living are soft and flexible.
When we die, we become hard and stiff;
The dead are rigid, unmoving.
The greenery - grasses, plants and trees
Growing are tender and supple,
Dead are dry and brittle.
And so the strong and hard
Go along with dying;
The open to change and flexible with living.

When an army becomes inflexible,
It suffers defeat.
A tree that won’t bend
Easily breaks in storms.
The hard and strong will fail,
The open-hearted prevail.

A good sense of humor has an important but small place in life. Too much joking undermines credibility and—while it may create a reputation for good wit—prevents people from taking us seriously. Joking and lying share many similarities and both make people not know when they can and when they can't believe us. When we have an important and serious point to make, people at first expect that we're just joking again and any influence the point might have quickly dissolves.

When the rich spend taxes on making themselves richer,
The people starve.
Thieves and robbers arise from cold and hunger.
When the people don’t have enough,
Why should the rich have too much?

When the rich oppress,
The people rebel.
When the government is too intrusive,
The people are hard to govern.
The more laws they make,
The more criminals appear.

When the powerful make too much of life,
The people make light of death.
Those not seduced by fortune and fame
Are worth so much more than these wealth-seekers.
Only a leader not focused on personal gain
Can wisely govern.