Chapter 56
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.
1He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it. ★ REFUTED
The knower is silent; the speaker does not know. It is a wise check on glib talk — and a death sentence for all teaching, preaching, and scripture, including the book in which the sentence stands. God's way is the reverse: He has spoken, at sundry times and in divers manners, 'and in these last days by his Son' (Hebrews 1:1–2); and His truth is not hoarded by the silent but preached to every creature. A god who cannot speak cannot say 'come unto me.'
2He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'
3(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or meanness:--he is the noblest man under heaven.