Lao Tzu Quotes, With Chapters and the Inventions Marked
The Tao Te Ching is short, ancient, and translated more often than almost any other text — which is why quotations from it vary so widely, and why several of the most popular have no Chinese original at all.
James Legge’s 1891 translation is used below because it is in the public domain. It is less elegant than the modern versions you will have seen; those are under copyright, which is worth knowing when a site quotes twenty of them without attribution.
On beginning
The journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 64
The most quoted line in the book, usually as “a thousand miles”. The tense in the Chinese is closer to Legge’s past — the journey began with a step, which frames it as a description of how large things are actually made rather than as encouragement to start.
The master of it anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 63
The practical core of the book. Not a claim about effort but about timing — the same problem is cheap early and expensive late, which is as true of a conversation as of a roof.
On self-knowledge
He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 33
The verse continues: he who is satisfied with his lot is rich. Three claims in a row that relocate the measure of a person from external comparison to internal work, written around 2,500 years ago.
Who is content needs never be ashamed.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 44
The chapter around it asks which is dearer, fame or your own self, and which more destructive, gain or loss. It reads as an interrogation rather than a consolation.
On water, and on not contending
The highest excellence is like that of water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving, the low place which all men dislike.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 8
The central image of the whole tradition. Water is used because it achieves by yielding — it is the opposite of the force-based model of strength, and it is why the book keeps recommending the position nobody wants.
It is because he does not strive that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching (Legge translation, 1891), ch. 22
The most counter-intuitive claim in the text and the one modern renderings usually soften. It is not advice to be passive; it is an argument that contention gives an opponent something to push against.
Lines with no Chinese original
- “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions…” Attributed to Laozi, the Buddha, Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher’s father. The earliest traced appearance is a 1977 American newspaper crediting a “Frank Outlaw”. It is not in the Tao Te Ching.
- “If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace you are living in the present.” Not in any translation. The psychological vocabulary is modern — see the note on this.
- “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Extremely popular and not found in Legge, Waley, or other standard translations. Probably a modern paraphrase of ch. 37.
- “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” A loose modern rendering rather than a translation. No standard version reads this way.
If you want to read it
It is about eighty short chapters and takes an afternoon. Legge is free and reads as Victorian; the modern translations are easier and differ from each other substantially, which is itself informative — a text that can be rendered this many ways is not delivering the precise instructions the quotation industry implies.
Read a few chapters at a time. The book contradicts itself deliberately, and reading it straight through as advice tends to produce frustration rather than the effect intended.
Common questions
What is the most famous Lao Tzu quote?
“The journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step” — Tao Te Ching ch. 64, usually rendered as “a thousand miles”.
Did Lao Tzu write “watch your thoughts, they become words”?
No. The earliest traced appearance is a 1977 American newspaper crediting a “Frank Outlaw”. It is not in the Tao Te Ching.
Is “nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” genuine?
It is not found in Legge, Waley or other standard translations. It is probably a modern paraphrase of chapter 37.
Which Tao Te Ching translation is public domain?
James Legge’s 1891 translation. Modern versions such as Stephen Mitchell’s are under copyright.