When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends.
Interpretation
The quote warns that the absence of fear towards authority can lead to a more significant fear arising from other sources.
This quote by Laozi emphasizes the idea that when individuals stop fearing those in power, it opens the door to a more profound sense of dread that can emerge from chaos or lack of order. It's a reflection on the human condition and the balance between authority and the potential for disorder when that authority is no longer respected or feared.
In practice
In a discussion about political power and its implications, one might quote Laozi to illustrate the consequences of losing respect for authority.
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.
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Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
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Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
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You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.
A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy
The harsh truth is that 'respectability' is the exorbitant tax we African Americans are forced to pay daily as we try to live out our versions of the American Dream.
We will be judged. There will be an accounting; there will be a reckoning sooner or later. It will either come from ourselves and our own conscience, or it will come from our kids when they ask that inconvenient question: 'What were you doing when they turned those kids back from the border?'
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