Taoism
The Tao Te Ching, the short book of verses at the root of Taoist thought.
What it is
The work is traditionally attributed to Laozi and usually placed around the fourth century before the common era, though both the attribution and the date have been disputed for a long time, and it may be a compilation rather than one writer’s book. Its chapters are brief and numbered, and translators have kept that numbering since.
Its subject is how to act, and much of its counsel is about acting less: yielding rather than forcing, emptiness as a form of usefulness, water as the figure for a strength that does not contend. The verses are compressed and often deliberately paradoxical, written to be turned over rather than read straight through.
Where these words come from
Tao Te Ching
Tâo Teh King · Translated by James Legge (1891)
81 chapters · Public domain
Read the complete textat en.wikisource.org
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