English
64
"When sitting still, they are easy to hold down no omens yet, it is easy to plan when fragile, they are easy to break when small, they are easy to scatter. Work on it when it isn't yet put it in order when it is not yet disordered. A tree you can barely get your arms around, grows from a tiny shoot a nine-story tower begins as a heap of earth a thousand-mile journey begins under your feet. Working ruins, grasping loses. And so the Wise Person: Does not work, so does not ruin does not grasp, so does not lose. Men often ruin their affairs on the eve of success, because they are not as prudent at the end as in the beginning. The wise man wills what others do not will, and values not things rare. He learns what others learn not, and gathers up what they despise. And so the Wise Person: Desires to be desireless does not prize goods hard to come by learns to be un-leaned turns back to the place all others have gone on from. So as to help along the naturalness of the thousands of things with out presuming to be a Worker."
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Author
Lao TzuBook
Tao Te Ching
Version: 9