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Tao Te Ching — Refutation Edition

Chapter 22

Taoism — Lao-tzu and the Unnameable Way · text: Translated by James Legge (Sacred Books of the East, 1891) — Project Gutenberg eBook #216, 'The Tao Teh King' (public domain). Highlighted passages are answered beneath the text.

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1The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty, full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he whose (desires) are many goes astray.

2Therefore the sage holds in his embrace the one thing (of humility), and manifests it to all the world. He is free from self-display, and therefore he shines; from self-assertion, and therefore he is distinguished; from self-boasting, and therefore his merit is acknowledged; from self-complacency, and therefore he acquires superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.

3That saying of the ancients that 'the partial becomes complete' was not vainly spoken:--all real completion is comprehended under it.

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