Quotes from Zhuangzi

He set forth his intractable ideas but was never partisan or restricted to his own subjective stance. He moved alone with the spirit of heaven and earth, and did not exalt himself above all things. He did not dispute right and wrong, but sought to live peacefully with the prevalent views.

Zhuangzi said, "Affirming some things as right and negating others as wrong are what I call the characteristic inclinations. What I call being free of them means not allowing likes and dislikes to damage you internally, instead making it your constant practice to follow along with the way each thing is of itself, going by (5:23) whatever it affirms as right, without trying to add anything to the process of life.

All things have different uses. Fine horses can travel a hundred miles a day, But they cannot catch mice Like terriers or weasels: All creatures have gifts of their own. The white horned owl can catch fleas at midnight And distinguish the tip of a hair, But in bright day it stares, helpless, And cannot even see a mountain. All things have varying capacities.

Whoever focuses on externals will be clumsy inside. (p. 177)

Colui che non riesce a trovare spazio per gli altri manca di comprensione, e a chi manca di comprensione tutti risultano estranei.

For we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?

The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.

The little child learns to speak, though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.

It is only when the formed learns from the unformed that there is understanding.

That knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.

To be truly ignorant, be content with your own knowledge.

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things, and you will find yourself at one with the mysterious unity of the Universe.

Birth is not the beginning, Death is not the end.

The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate, fail to see.

Human life is limited, but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in pursuit of the limitless is fatal; and to presume that one really knows is fatal indeed!

Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.

Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.

How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?

Never admire a man by his strength; judge him in how he uses it- A way is made by walking it

We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening

If you have grasped the purpose of life there is no point in trying to make life into something it is not or cannot be.