Lao Tzu Famous Quotes

The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.” The author is Seneca, born in Spain 2,000 years ago. ​China’s Lao-Tzu, born nearly six centuries earlier than Seneca, had this to say: “To know you have enough is to be rich.” ​This next quotation is my favorite. It is by actor Jim Carrey, who is both rich and famous: ​“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.” ​However, if being rich and famous will not make you happy, what will?

Speaking of the ground of Being, the Zen monk Shunryū Suzuki writes: 'The true source, ri, is beyond our thinking; it is pure and stainless. When you describe it, you put a limitation on it. That is, you stain the truth or put a mark on it.' In the Analects of Confucius it sis written: 'The Master said, does Heaven speak?' Famously Lao Tzu tells us that 'the tao that can be named is not the eternal tao'. In the Eastern tradition, then, there are many such statements of the impossibility of capturing the source of all things in language.