Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu is the name attached to the author of the Tao Te Ching, the founding text of Taoism, composed in China around the sixth or fourth century BC. Whether he was a historical person or a collection of several authors has been debated for centuries. The book works through paradox and restraint, and opens by warning that what matters most cannot be put into words.
About this theme: Mindfulness
Mindfulness has become close to an industry in recent decades, which makes it easy to forget how old the practice is. Buddhist texts on attention are two and a half millennia old, and the Stoics kept journals for the same purpose: to notice what is actually happening in the mind before acting on it. Marcus Aurelius wrote his notes for himself, in the morning, before the day's duties.
More by Lao Tzu
- A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
- Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
- A leader is best when people barely know he exists.
More on Mindfulness
- The earth laughs in flowers.— Ralph Waldo Emerson
- True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.— Seneca
- The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.— Michel de Montaigne
- A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.— Blaise Pascal