Zhuang Zhou Quotes

He would have his plans take effect with the speed of fire

Know the male but hold to the female; be the ravine of the world. Know the unstained, but hold to the disgraced; be the valley of the world. Everyone else chooses to be the first, but I choose to be last. This is called accepting the filth of the world. Everyone else chooses to be full, but I choose to be empty, for it is because I store up nothing that I have more than enough — like a range of rolling hills stretching on before me, more than enough!

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?

Atlar karada yaşar, ot yer ve su içer. Memnun olduklarında boyunlarını birbirine dolayıp birbirlerine sürtünürler. Sinirlendiklerinde dönüp birbirlerini çiftelerler. Bunların hepsi atların içgüdüleridir. Ama atlar boyunduruk altına alınıp süslendiklerinde çıtaları kırmayı, boyunlarını kaldırmayı, vahşi davranmayı, tükürmeyi ve dizginlerini ısırmayı bilirler. Bu nedenle atların insanlara karşı koyacak kadar kurnaz olması Bo Le'nin hatasıdır.

Hükümdar Hexu'nun zamanında insanlar ne yapacaklarını ve nereye gideceklerini bilmeden hayatlarını boşa harcardı. Karınları toktu ve mutluydular. İnsanların yapabileceği tek şey buydu. Bilgeler dünyaya gelince, dünyayı düzeltmek için müzik ve törenleri icat ettiler; bilgi ve servet için sonsuz çaba göstermeye başlayan insanların kalbini rahatlatmak için insanlığı ve doğruluğu artırdılar. Bu da bilgelerin hatasıdır.

Heaven, Earth and I live together. All things and I comprise an inseparable Oneness.

But if we are all one, can there be any words? But since I have already declared that we are “one,” can there be no words? The one and the word are already two, the two and the original unnamed one are three.18 Going on like this, even a skilled chronicler could not keep up with it, not to mention a lesser man. So even moving from nonexistence to existence we already arrive at three — how much more when we move from existence to existence! Rather than moving from anywhere to anywhere, then, let us just go by the rightness (2:33) of whatever is before us as the present “this.

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

The sage dwells among things without harming them. Because he doesn’t harm them, they cannot harm him either. Because there is no harm either way, he can both welcome them in and usher them out.

Everyone esteems what his knowing knows, but no one knows how to know only by relying on what his knowing does not know.

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!

The great mass of breath is the wind, yet there are times
when the wind does not move. When it does move,
a myriad of orifices and appendages are aroused to make sounds.
Have you never listened to the sound of the wind in the cavities,
mountains and among the branches of trees?
The wind blows in a thousand different ways,
but each sound is produced in its own way.
What is it that excites all this, and makes each way be itself,
and all these things be self-produced?

Thus, the Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage’s only map. He makes no definition of what is right but instead entrusts it to the everyday function of each thing. This is what I call the Illumination of the Obvious.

Bo Ju was studying with Lao Dan and asked, “May I go wandering out in the world?” Lao Dan said, “No need. The world is the same as here.

Ja sinulla on iso puu, etkä tiedä, mitä sillä tekisit! Mikset siirrä sitä tyhjälle kentälle tai asumattomaan metsään? Siellä voisit rauhassa kuljeskella sen ympärillä tai levätä sen siimeksessä. Se olisi turvassa kirveeltä, eikä kukaan vahingoittaisi sitä, sillä ellei siitä olisi hyötyä muille, mikä sitä silloin vahingoittaisi?

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?