Chapter 64
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Chapter 64
It is easy to sustain what is at rest.
It is easy to plan for that of which there is not even a sign.
What is fragile is easily broken.
What is minute is easily dispersed.
Act upon it before it exists.
Regulate it before it becomes chaos.
A massive tree grows from a little sprout.
A nine-story-building rises from a clod of earth.
A thousand fathoms begin with a single step.
Those who impose action upon it will fail.
Those who cling to it lose it.
So the sage, through nonaction, does not fail.
Not clinging, he does not lose.
The common people’s engagement in affairs fails prior to success.
So the saying goes,
“Give as much careful attention to the end as to the beginning, then the affairs will not fail.”
It is on that account that the sage desires not to desire and does not value goods that are hard to get.
He learns not to learn and restores the common people’s losses.
He is able to support the nature of all things and, not by daring, to impose action.
