Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates how gentleness and persistence can overcome obstacles.
Laozi's quote emphasizes the paradoxical nature of water, which is soft yet powerful enough to shape landscapes over time. It conveys a profound philosophical principle that gentleness and resilience can conquer rigidity and adversity, suggesting that strength does not always come from force but can arise from softness and persistence.
In practice
Using this quote during a motivational speech about resilience and persistence in the face of challenges.
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.
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
She starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see.
The truth is always an abyss. One must β as in a swimming pool β dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again β laughing and fighting for breath β to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
When everything is subject to money, then the scarcity of money makes everything scarce, including the basis of human life and happiness. Such is the life of the slaveβone whose actions are compelled by threat to survival. Perhaps the deepest indication of our slavery is the monetization of time.
When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
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