{"author":"Zhuangzi","author_id":"Zhuangzi","total_quotes":75,"quotes":[{"text":"Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, follow along with things the way they are, and make no room for personal views - then the world will be governed.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["govern","simplicity","taoism","vastness"],"id":3402,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["boundlessness","inaction","taoism","unity","wuwei"],"id":4954,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["death","flow","heaven","joy","life","life-and-death","stillness","tao","taoism","transformation","unity","way","yang-and-yin","yin-and-yang"],"id":9604,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"Suppose I try saying something. What way do I have of knowing that if I say I know something I don't really not know it? Or what way do I have of knowing that if I say I don't know something I don't really in fact know it?","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["ignorance","knowledge"],"id":10279,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"He who has mastered the true nature of life does not labor over what life cannot do. He who has mastered the true nature of fate does not labor over what knowledge cannot change.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["acceptance","equanimity"],"id":21295,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["learn","learning","taoism","teach","teaching"],"id":30251,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"I cannot tell if what the world considers ‘happiness’ is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["happiness","inspirational","life"],"id":32682,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"The Spirit Tower has its guardian, but unless it understands who its guardian is, it cannot be guarded.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["guardian","mind","soul","spirit","spirit-tower","tao","taoism"],"id":34949,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"The tailor bird builds her nest in deep woods, she uses no more than one branch.The mole drinks off the river, it can only fill one belly.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["animal-metaphors","free-and-easy","living-with-less","simplicity"],"id":38907,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"},{"text":"Everything has its 'that,' everything has its 'this.' From the point of view of 'that' you cannot see it, but through understanding you can know it. So I say, 'that' comes out of 'this' and 'this' depends on 'that' - which is to say that 'this' and 'that' give birth to each other. But where there is birth there must be death; where there is death there must be birth. Where there is acceptability there must be unacceptability; where there is unacceptability there must be acceptability. Where there is recognition of right there must be recognition of wrong; where there is recognition of wrong there must be recognition of right. Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but illuminates all in the light of Heaven. He too recognizes a 'this,' but a 'this' which is also 'that,' a 'that' which is also 'this.' His 'that' has both a right and a wrong in it; his 'this' too has both a right and a wrong in it. So, in fact, does he still have a 'this' and 'that'? Or does he in fact no longer have a 'this' and 'that'? A state in which 'this' and 'that' no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its wrong too is a single endlessness. So, I say, the best thing to use is clarity.","author":"Zhuangzi","tags":["unity"],"id":46847,"author_id":"Zhuangzi"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":75,"pages":8,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}