“He is the kind of person who is genuine: . . . How could I, Choiceless, be worthy even to mention such a person?”

— Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi was traveling in the mountains when he came upon a huge tree, luxuriantly overgrown with branches and leaves. A woodcutter stopped beside it, but in the end chose not to fell it. Asked the reason, he said, There is nothing it can be used for.”

— Zhuangzi

Duke Huan burst out laughing and said, “That is what I saw!” . . . Before the end of the day, without his even realizing it, his illness was gone.

— Zhuangzi

I don’t know: is there anything that is really good, or isn’t there?

Nor do I know whether what the ordinary people nowadays do, what they find their happiness in, is really happiness or not.

— Zhuangzi

The becoming of things is like a galloping horse, transforming with each movement, altering at each moment. What should you do? What should you not do? No matter what, you will be spontaneously transforming!

— Zhuangzi

When the correctness belonging to another is applied to oneself, it only beclouds one’s intrinsic virtuosities.

— Zhuangzi

When conscious understanding and tranquility can come together and nourish one another in this way, a harmonious coherence of the two emerges from the inborn. Inherent virtuosity is just this harmony, and the Course is just this coherence.

— Zhuangzi

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