They can see their neighbors. Roosters and dogs can be heard from there. Still, they will age and die without visiting one another.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the isolation that people can experience despite being physically close to others.
Laozi's quote emphasizes the emotional distance that can exist in relationships, even when people live near each other. It suggests that mere proximity does not guarantee connection or understanding, and that without effort to engage and visit one another, individuals may lead lonely lives, aging and passing away without meaningful interactions.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of community engagement.
If you understand others you are smart._x000D_ If you understand yourself you are illuminated._x000D_ If you overcome others you are powerful._x000D_ If you overcome yourself you have strength._x000D_ If you know how to be satisfied you are rich._x000D_ If you can act with vigor, you have a will._x000D_ If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting._x000D_ If you die without loss, you are eternal.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage makes her something like a public building.
I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.
He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same.
Creative people don't behave very well generally. If you're looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you're gonna be depressed real fast. I don't have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She's my first priority.
It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.
I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.
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