Zhuang Zhou Quotes

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly. A butterfly fluttering happily around — was he revealing what he himself meant to be? He knew nothing of Zhou. All at once awakening, there suddenly he was — Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhou having dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must surely be some distinction. This is known at the transformation of things.

Have you never heard of the traveler from the distant state of Yue? When he had been away from his homeland for a few days, he was glad whenever he saw an acquaintance. When he had been away for a fortnight or a month, he was delighted to see anyone he had even met with in his home country. After a year, he was delighted to see anyone who even resembled anyone he had met there. Was this not because he missed his countrymen more and more deeply the longer he was away? Now imagine someone who had fled to the empty wastelands, where tangles of goosefeet and woodbine block the paths even of the weasels and polecats who hop from spot to spot through the wastes. How delighted he would be if he were to hear the stomping of human footsteps, and how much more so if he were to catch a sound in the breeze of his brothers and relatives chatting and chuckling somewhere nearby! How long indeed it must have been since my lord has heard even the chatting and chuckling of a Genuine Human anywhere near him!

When a hideous man becomes a father
And a son is born to him
In the middle of the night
He trembles and lights a lamp
And runs to look in anguish
On that child's face
To see who he resembles.

Eyes that are blind have no way to tell the loveliness of faces and features; eyes with no pupils have no way to tell the beauty of colored and embroidered silks.

Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.

What do you want to compare me to, one of those cultivated trees? The hawthorn, the pear, the orange, the rest of those fructiferous trees and shrubs — when their fruit is ripe they get plucked, and that is an insult. Their large branches are bent, their small branches are pruned. Thus do their abilities embitter their lives. That is why they die young, failing to fully live out their Heaven-given lifespans. They batter themselves with the vulgar conventions of the world, as do all the other things of the world. As for me, I’ve been working on being useless for a long time. It almost killed me, but I’ve finally managed it — and it is of great use to me! If I were useful, do you think I could have grown to be so great?

Moreover, you and I are both things, objects — how then should we objectify each other? We are members of the same class, namely, things — is either of us in a position to classify and evaluate the other? How could a worthless man with one foot in the grave know what is or isn’t a worthless tree?

Alas! It saddened me to see someone lose himself like that, and then it saddened me that I was saddened about that person, and then it saddened me that I was saddened that I was saddened about that person. And from there it just keeps going on and on.

So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow.

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn't there? What does the Way rely upon, that we have true and false? What do words rely upon, that we have right and wrong? How can the Way go away and not exist? How can words exist and not be acceptable? When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words reply on vain show, then we have rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Mo-ists. What one calls right the other calls wrong; what one calls wrong the other calls right. But if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, then the best to use is clarity.

And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman — how dense! Confucius and you both are dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed.

The fact is that those who do not see themselves but who see others, who fail to get a grasp of themselves but who grasp others, take possession of what others have but fail to possess
themselves. They are attracted to what others enjoy but fail to find enjoyment in themselves.

Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.

Therefore understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest.

Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.