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> 94 quotes tagged "simplicity"
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Not to value and employ men of superior ability causes disorder; Not to prize goods that are hard to come by causes theft.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 3
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The supreme good is like water, Which nourishes all things without trying to.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 8
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Better stop in time than fill to the brim. Over‑sharpen the blade and the edge will soon blunt.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 9
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Can you hold fast to the One and never let go? Can you concentrate your vital force and become supple like a newborn child?Tao Te Ching – Chapter 10
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Colors blind the eye. Sounds deafen the ear. Flavors numb the taste.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 12
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Give up wisdom, discard knowledge, and the people will be a hundred times happier.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 19
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Give up learning, and put aside the business of deliberation and concern.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 20
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Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 23
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A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 27
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The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 37
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Fame or integrity: which is more important? Wealth or happiness: which is more desirable?Tao Te Ching – Chapter 44
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In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired; in the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 48
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The great way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 53
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The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people become.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 57
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Rulers who govern by laws and punishments are like the rafts and boats of a river: they prevent accidents, but they do not make people virtuous.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 60
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A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The great is made of small.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 64
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If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 74
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Great speech seems inarticulate. Great action seems ineffective. Great form seems imperfect.Chuang Tzu, Chapter 27: Imputed Words
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Act from genuine spontaneity, not calculation. Innocence means freedom from hidden agendas. Simplicity cuts through complexity.I Ching, Hexagram 25: Innocence / Simplicity
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After tension comes release, like spring rain clearing the air. Resolve what can be resolved, then return to simplicity. Don't prolong what's finished.I Ching, Hexagram 40: Deliverance / Release
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Enjoy the plain and simple. Find that greatness in the small.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 63
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Those who wish to know the whole truth take joy in doing the work and service that comes to them. This simple path leads to peace, virtue, and abundance.Hua Hu Jing, Verse 1
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Keep your mind free of divisions and distinctions. When your mind is detached, simple, quiet, then all things can exist in harmony, and you can begin to perceive the subtle truth.Hua Hu Jing, Verse 11
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Why not trust the plainness and simplicity of the Integral Way? Living with unconditional sincerity, eradicating all duality, celebrating the equality of things, your every moment will be in truth.Hua Hu Jing, Verse 25
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Live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and concepts. Find contentment in the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power. Your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings.Hua Hu Jing, Verse 47
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Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. Honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters. That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery.Hua Hu Jing, Verse 52
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The farther one travels, the less one may know.Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams
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The ancients understood life's brevity and therefore gave way to their impulses and did not check their natural propensities. By following their nature rather than external demands, they lived without internal conflict.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 3
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Those who know how to enjoy life are not poor, and he that lives at ease requires no riches. The capacity to appreciate existence itself becomes the greatest wealth.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 6
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It suffices to give it its free course, neither checking nor obstructing it. True vitality emerges when we stop interfering with our natural inclinations.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 8
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Fame is the follower of reality and comes naturally when disregarded. The frenzy to chase fame often contradicts its organic nature.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 19
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The nature of water is to be clear and pure; but it is made turbid by the soil. Our natural state is serene until corrupted by external desires.Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 2
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Whether possessing abundant resources or few, one can only consume what satisfies hunger. True wealth lies in needing little, not in accumulating excess.Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 3
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The more the display of ability, the less becomes the power of virtue. Excessive cleverness and technological advancement diminish genuine spiritual power.Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 4
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Practice restraint in taking and abundance in giving.T'ai-Shang Kan-Ying P'ien – Moral Injunctions
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How wondrously supernatural, and how miraculous! I draw water, and I carry fuel.Zen Poem – P'ang Yün (740-808 CE)
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Drinking tea, eating rice, I pass my time as it comes. Looking down at the stream, looking up at the mountain, how serene and relaxed I feel indeed!Zen Poem – Nan-ch'üan P'u-yüan (748-835)
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I cherish the green bamboos in front of the step, and the green mountains beyond the window, eternally fresh.Zen Poem – T'ien-t'ai Te-chao (891-972)
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Living with a cloud, I share a mountain hut. How free and easy I feel in this floating world!Zen Poem – Kuei-tsung Chih-chih
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Banish wisdom, discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited a hundredfold. Banish human kindness, discard morality, and the people will be dutiful and compassionate. Give them Simplicity to look at, the Uncarved Black to hold, give them selflessness and fewness of desires.Tao Te Ching, Chapter 19
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Therefore the Sage rules by emptying their hearts and filling their bellies, weakening their intelligence and toughening their sinews, ever striving to make the people knowledgeless and desireless. Indeed he sees to it that if there be any who have knowledge, they dare not interfere. Yet through his actionless activity all things are duly regulated.Tao Te Ching, Chapter 3
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He who has the least scrap of sense, once he has got started on the great highway has nothing to fear so long as he avoids turnings. For great highways are safe and easy. But men love by-paths. They wear patterns and embroideries, carry sharp swords, glut themselves with drink and food, have more possessions than they can use. These are the riotous ways of brigandage; they are not the Highway.Tao Te Ching, Chapter 53
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Don't make a distinction between work and play. Regard everything that you're doing as play, and don't regard for one minute that you have to be serious about it.Alan Watts
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The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.Alan Watts
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If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid.Alan Watts
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The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money… they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.Alan Watts
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Education, in the real sense, is not preparation for life, it is actually living. It is the child participating in adult concerns. And doing it now and realizing that the point of the process in which the child is engaged, is not to prepare the child for the future, but to enjoy doing the thing today.Alan Watts
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In the tea room, nothing is placed without purpose and no surface filled beyond necessity. The empty wall is not bare — it is open. The silence between host and guest is not awkward — it is the ceremony itself.Sen no Rikyu – Principles of Wabi-cha, 16th century
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Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.Zen proverb
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Smile, breathe, and go slowly.Thich Nhat Hanh
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In my first thirty years of life I roamed hundreds and thousands of miles. Walked by rivers through deep green grass, Entered cities of boiling red dust. Tried drugs, but couldn't make Immortal. Read books and wrote poems on history. Today I'm back at Cold Mountain. I'll sleep by the creek and purify my ears.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems, tr. Gary Snyder
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The path to Han-shan's place is laughable — A path, but no sign of cart or horse. Converging gorges — hard to trace their twists. Cliffs, with moss too slick to climb.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems, tr. Gary Snyder
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Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house? They're better for you than sutra-reading! Paste them up on your screen. From time to time take a look.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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When you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep.Book of Serenity — Baizhang
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Among layered cliffs I chose my home. Birds are my only companions through the years. What is happening in the world beyond the peaks? I watch the clouds and do not need to ask. Moss has grown over the stone steps. The white mist drifts through my open door. A monk came once and showed me the road out of delusion. I have not moved since.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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When people see Cold Mountain they say there is nothing remarkable. No jade tower, no golden gate. Just a cold mist among cold rocks. But the man who lives here finds it impossible to leave.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In the white clouds, I live at ease. A lone wild crane crosses the evening sky. On the cliffs pines stand rooted in nothing. Below, the valley fills with dark water. I have a gourd of wine and a bundle of firewood. Why would I go back?Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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All day I read the ancient books. All night the lamp burns down. At dawn I close the last page and still I have not arrived. A sparrow lands on the sill and sings one note. I put the books away.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The world runs after shadows — fame, rank, a bigger house. They exhaust themselves chasing what dissolves the moment they touch it. I sit by the spring and watch it flow. There is nowhere I need to arrive.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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A stone for a pillow. A stream for a mirror. A cliff face covered in poems no one reads. This is enough. This is more than enough.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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No visitors for a hundred days. Moss reclaims the path. The vines have crossed the doorway. I do not clear them. This is what the mountain does to a house when the house stops insisting on itself.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The cold spring water tastes of high rock, of pine root, of a thousand years of silence. Drinking it, I forget what city I came from. Drinking it again, I forget I ever forgot.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Books and swords — both too heavy. I left them at the bottom of the mountain. The climb is easier now but I am not sure where I am going. That too is easier now.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The crane returns to its nest at dusk without having decided to return. I watch it from the cliff edge and feel ashamed of all my decisions.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Three roads lead down from this mountain: one toward wine, one toward rank, one toward silence. Two of them are crowded. One is overgrown and hard to follow. I have worn it smooth going back and forth.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The rich man builds walls around his garden. The poor man's garden has no walls — it extends in every direction. Who has the larger garden?Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Someone carved their name into the cliff face. Ten years later, moss covered it. Twenty years later, no one can read it. The cliff has written its own name over theirs: silence.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In spring the mountain is easy to love. In summer, endurable. In autumn, magnificent. In winter, honest. I prefer winter.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The woodcutter passes my door every morning. Every morning he nods. In ten years, we have not exchanged a single word. This is the best conversation I have ever had.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In business, be competent. In action, watch the timing.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 8
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Carrying body and soul and embracing the one, Can you avoid separation? Attending fully and becoming supple, Can you be as a newborn babe? Washing and cleansing the primal vision, Can you be without stain?Tao Te Ching – Chapter 10
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Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense!Tao Te Ching – Chapter 20
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I have more than enough to eat, while others have nothing. I alone have nothing, but I am nourished by the great mother.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 20
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Better stop short than fill to the brim. Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it. Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 9
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The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies, by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones. If people lack knowledge and desire, then intellectuals will not try to interfere. If nothing is done, then all will be well.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 3
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Not exalting the gifted prevents quarrelling. Not collecting treasure prevents stealing. Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 3
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Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, And it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up kindness, renounce morality, And men will rediscover filial piety and love. Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, And bandits and thieves will disappear.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 19
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It is more important To see the simplicity, To realize one's true nature, To cast off selfishness And temper desire.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 19
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Racing and hunting madden the mind. Precious things lead one astray. Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. He lets go of that and chooses this.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 12
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The five colours blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavours dull the taste.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 12
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Yield and overcome. Bend and be straight. Empty and be full. Wear out and be new. Have little and gain. Have much and be confused.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 22
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He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of will power. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 33
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He who is attached to things will suffer much. He who saves will suffer heavy loss. A contented man is never disappointed. He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble. He will stay for ever safe.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 44
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According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage." They do not bring happiness. Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 24
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Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop averts trouble.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 32
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Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 32
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Without form there is no desire. Without desire there is tranquility. And in this way all things would be at peace.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 37
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Too much success is not an advantage. Do not tinkle like jade or clatter like stone chimes.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 39
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There is no greater sin than desire, no greater curse than discontent, no greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 46
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Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 46
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Less and less is done until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 48
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The sage is shy and humble — to the world he seems confusing. Men look to him and listen. He behaves like a little child.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 49
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When the court is arrayed in splendor, the fields are full of weeds, and the granaries are bare.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 53
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Some wear gorgeous clothes, carry sharp swords, and indulge themselves with food and drink; they have more possessions than they can use. They are robber barons. This is certainly not the way of Tao.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 53