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Chapter Thirteen
Favor and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honor and great calamity, to be regarded as personal conditions of the same kind.
What is meant by speaking thus of favor and disgrace? Disgrace is being in a low position after the enjoyment of favor. The getting that favor leads to the apprehension [...]
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Chapter Twelve
Color’s five hues from th’ eyes their sight will take;
Music’s five notes the ears as deaf can make;
The flavors five deprive the mouth of taste;
The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste
Make mad the mind; and objects rare and strange,
[...]
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Chapter Eleven
The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space for the axle, that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out from the walls to [...]
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Chapter Ten
When the intelligent and animal souls are held together in one embrace, they can be kept from separating. When one gives undivided attention to the vital breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a tender babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights [...]
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Chapter Nine
It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full. If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness.
When gold and jade fill the hall, their possessor cannot keep them safe. When wealth and honors lead [...]
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Chapter Eight
The highest excellence is like that of water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving to the contrary, the low place which all men dislike. Hence its way is near to that of the Tao.
The excellence of a residence is in the suitability [...]
