If a great country yields to a small country, it will conquer the small country. If a small country yields to a great country, it will be conquered by the great country.
Of all things, none does not revere the Way and honor virtue. Reverence of the Way and honoring virtue were not demanded of them, but it is in their nature.
A man is born gentle and weak. At death, he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At death, they are withered and dry. Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death, and the gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
(The Tao) is always present and always available. . . . If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most ordinary things.
To know how little one knows is to have genuine knowledge. Not to know how little one knows is to be deluded. Only those who know when they are deluded can free themselves from such delusion. The intelligent people are not deluded, because they know and accept their ignorance as ignorance, and thereby have genuine knowledge.