What is well rooted cannot be pulled up. What is firmly grasped will not slip loose. It will be honoured from generation to generation.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of strong foundations, whether in knowledge, beliefs, or values, indicating that what is deeply established can endure over time.
Laozi emphasizes the significance of having deep roots in our beliefs and values, suggesting that when something is well-established, it becomes resilient to challenges and cannot easily be uprooted or lost. This endurance is honored and preserved across generations, reflecting the idea that having strength in our foundations contributes to lasting legacies.
In practice
During a speech about education, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of a strong foundational knowledge.
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.
EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
Backlock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on color, and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
It's very easy to walk on a wire if you spend a whole lifetime practicing for it.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
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