To be lofty though without any carved-in-stone intentions, cultivated though without humankindness and responsible conduct, governing though without merit and fame, at leisure though without confinement to the rivers and seas, long-lived without manipulating the vital energies . . . this is the Course of heaven and earth, the intrinsic virtuosity of the sages.

— Zhuangzi

If a person is not a person as a form of participation with transformation, how can he transform others?

— Zhuangzi

In the ancestral temple, we honor our relatives. In the royal court, we honor rank. In the villages and towns, we honor age. In working at tasks, we honor ability. These are the sequential orderings of the Great Course. To speak of the Course and yet to critique its sequential orderings is to negate the Course itself.

— Zhuangzi

For he is the kind of leader who produces disorder through his very governing—a calamity to those who serve him and a thief to those who rule him.”

— Zhuangzi

Those above are like the upper branches of a tree, and the ordinary people are like wild deer below. They are upright and proper without knowing it is ‘responsible conduct,’ love and care for one another without knowing it is ‘humankindness,’ are true without knowing it is ‘loyalty,’ reliable without knowing it is ‘trustworthiness.’

— Zhuangzi

The teaching that comes from a truly Great Man is like a shadow cast by a body or an echo raised by a sound. When questioned, he responds, thus getting to the bottom of the questioner’s concern, a perfect match with each person in the world

— Zhuangzi

When a great thief arrives, he will take the cabinet on his back, haul off the trunk, shoulder the sack, and make off with it—fearing nothing more than that the seals, ropes, latches, and locks are not secure enough.

— Zhuangzi

Here are the horses, able to tramp over frost and snow with the hooves they have, to keep out the wind and cold with their coats. . . . This is the genuine inborn nature of horses. Even if given fancy terraces and great halls, they would have no use for them.

— Zhuangzi

The duck’s neck may be short, but lengthening it would surely pain him; the swan’s neck may be long, but cutting it short would surely grieve him. . . . Whether something is added or something is taken away, the sorrow is the same.

—Zhuangzi

A bird avoids the harm of arrows and nets by flying high, and a mouse burrows in the depths beneath the shrines and graves to avoid poison and traps. Have you ever equaled the ‘non-knowledge’ of these two little pests?

— Zhuangzi

It is all the play of his wandering, nothing more.

— Zhuangzi

“What I call being free of them means not allowing like 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 its spontaneous affirmations, without trying to add anything to the process of generation.”

— Zhuangzi

Toeless said, “Heaven itself has inflicted this punishment on him—how can he be released?”

— Zhuangzi

“go be what you can’t help being.”

— Zhuangzi

“Nonetheless, whenever I come to a clustered tangle, realizing that it is difficult to do anything about it, I instead restrain myself as if terrified, until my seeing comes to a complete halt. My activity slows, and the blade moves ever so slightly. Then Whoosh! All at once I find the ox already dismembered at my feet.”

— Zhuangzi

Gnawgap said, “Then are all things devoid of knowledge?”

Baby Sovereign said, “How could I know that? Still let me try to say something about this. How could I know that what I call ‘knowing’ is not really ‘not-knowing’? How could I know that what I call ‘not-knowing’ is really not ‘knowing’?”

— Zhuangzi

“You . . . had a gourd of over a hundred pounds. How is it you never thought of making it into an enormous vessel for yourself and floating through the lakes and rivers in it? Instead, you worried that it was too wide to scoop into anything, which I guess means the mind of our greatly esteemed master here is still clogged up, occupied with its bushes and branches!”

— Zhuangzi

“Such is the difference between the large and the small.”

— Zhuangzi

There is a fish in the Northern Oblivion named Kun, and this Kun is quite huge, spanning who knows how many thousands of miles. He transforms into a bird named Peng, and this Peng has quite a back on him, stretching who knows how many thousands of miles . . . This bird begins his journey toward the Southern Oblivion. The Southern Oblivion—that is the Pool of Heaven

— Zhuangzi