At a glance
- From
- Chu
- Nationality
- Zhou dynasty
Biography
The lines people quote about yielding, softness overcoming hardness, and the way that cannot be named come from the Tao Te Ching, and the name attached to that text is Laozi — "Old Master". It is one of the foundational works of Taoism, and it has circulated for centuries without anyone being able to say with confidence who wrote it.
Traditional accounts fill in a life. They call him Li Er, born in the state of Chu during the Spring and Autumn period, in the sixth century BC. He held the post of royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng. Confucius is said to have met him once and come away impressed. The story ends with him writing the whole of the Dao De Jing in a single sitting before heading west into the wilderness and out of the record entirely.
Modern scholarship treats most of that as later invention. The text is generally read as the work of several hands rather than one, and the name itself — literally "Old Master" — looks less like a person than a device: an anonymous voice of great age, positioned to speak back to Confucianism. What survives, and what readers still turn to, is the book rather than the biography.
Traditional accounts fill in a life. They call him Li Er, born in the state of Chu during the Spring and Autumn period, in the sixth century BC. He held the post of royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng. Confucius is said to have met him once and come away impressed. The story ends with him writing the whole of the Dao De Jing in a single sitting before heading west into the wilderness and out of the record entirely.
Modern scholarship treats most of that as later invention. The text is generally read as the work of several hands rather than one, and the name itself — literally "Old Master" — looks less like a person than a device: an anonymous voice of great age, positioned to speak back to Confucianism. What survives, and what readers still turn to, is the book rather than the biography.
Quotes 9
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
“Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your d...”
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.”
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
