quote · Source-linked selection
1. The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things! 2. We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue! 3. I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.
1. The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things! 2. We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue! 3. I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.
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- Author or tradition
- Laozi (traditional attribution)
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Historical period not yet established
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- The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics (James Legge English translation)
Complete printed chapter 4; James Legge translation; Undated digitized James Legge English edition; printed publication year/publisher not supplied in this cached text
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The voice behind the words.
Traditional attribution of the Tao Teh King, represented here by complete numbered chapters in James Legge’s English translation. Historical identity, authorship and dates are disputed; no lifetime or composition year is assigned. Read within the transmitted text, rather than treating traditional attribution as independent verification.
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