Experience - Quotes

A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. - Samuel Parkes Cadman

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

All experience is an enrichment rather than an impoverishment. - Eudora Welty

Anyone who has had a long life of experiences is worth listening to, worth emulating, and worth tying to as a friend. No one can have too much experience in any line of endeavor. We readily welcome to our group of friends that one who talks with the voice of experience and common sense. We know that we are safe in his hands. He is not going to get us into trouble. Rather is he going to point out the pitfalls and mistakes that experience has taught him to avoid. There is no experience but what carries its lasting good for us along with it. And you don’t have to discard experience. It’s a coat for life! It never wears out. - George Matthew Adams

As experience widens, one begins to see how much upon a level all human things are. - Joseph Farrell

Borrowing other people’s experience to do things does not necessarily make you unoriginal. You can always find new and better ways of applying an old method. - Unknown

Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is a correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light. - Raymond Holliwell

Every crucial experience can be regarded as a setback – or the start of a new kind of development. - Mary Rinehart

Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us. - Orison Swett Marden

Every experience is a form of exploration. - Ansel Adams

Every experience you have is designed to make you stronger. - Unknown

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them. - Edward Roscoe Murrow 

Experience alone can decide on truth. - Albert Einstein

Experience increases our wisdom but doesn’t reduce our follies. - Josh Billings

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it. - Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. - Unknown

Experience is a school where a man learns what a big fool he has been. - Josh Billings

Experience is a pocket-compass that few think of consulting until they have lost their way. - Eliza Cook

Experience is a truer guide than the words of others. - Leonardo da Vinci

Experience is another word for mistakes. - Ken Alstad

Experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other. - Judy Collins

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. - Henry James 

Experience is not always the kindest of teachers, but it is surely the best.

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. - Aldous Huxley

Experience is one thing you cannot get for nothing. - Oscar Wilde

Experience is retrospect knowledge. - Hosea Ballou

Experience is something you get too late to do anything about the mistakes you made while getting it. - Unknown

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. - Franklin P. Jones

Experience is the best of school masters, only the school fees are heavy. - Thomas Caryle

Experience is the best teacher. - Latin Proverb

Experience is the extract of suffering. - Arthur Helps

Experience is the mother of wisdom. - Unknown

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. - Oscar Wilde 

Experience is the only good 'tis safer to borrow than to buy. - Ivan Panin

Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get. - L. Frank Baum

Experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you. - Katherine Anne Porter

Experience is what you get when you do not get what you want. - Unknown

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. - Benjamin Franklin

Experience seems to be the only thing of any value that’s widely distributed. - William Feather

Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make. - Donald Trump

Experience teaches only the teachable. - Aldous Huxley

Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes. - James Anthony Froude

Experience, if we only learn by it, is cheap at any price. - Ivan Panin

Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

Experience, the universal Mother of Sciences. - Miquel de Cervantes

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience. - Randolph S. Bourne

From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future. - John Quincy Adams

Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment. - Mark Twain

He who neglects to drink of the spring of experience is likely to die of thirst in the desert of ignorance. - Lin Po

Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn – when they do, which isn’t often – on their own, the hard way. - Robert Heinlein

If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires. - Abigail Van Buren

Imagination is a poor substitute for experience. - Havelock Ellis

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept. - Marcus Fabius Quintilian

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy. - J. Paul Getty

Individual experiences being limited and individual spontaneity feeble, we are strengthened and enriched by assimilating the experience of others. - George Henry Lewes

Information is pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. - Unknown

Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experiences. But if you have the same experiences as everyone else, you are unlikely to look in a different direction. - Steve Jobs

It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. - L.M. Montgomery

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience. - Jonathan Swift

No man's knowledge can go beyond his experience. - John Locke

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. - Auguste Rodin

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost. - William Ellery Channing

One thing about experience is that when you don't have very much you're apt to get a lot. - Franklin P. Jones

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. - James Russell Lowell

Present experience has, I am afraid, always found us "absent-minded": we cannot give our hearts to it – not even our ears! Rather, as one divinely preoccupied and immersed in himself into whose ear the bell has just boomed with all its strength the twelve beats of noon suddenly starts up and asks himself: "what really was that which just struck?" so we sometimes rub our ears afterward and as, utterly surprised and disconcerted, "what really was that which we have just experienced?" - Friedrich Nietzsche

That’s the way people go. They have a powerful experience and they use it to interpret, rightly or wrongly, what happens later in the rest of the world. - James Fenton

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom. - Samuel Smile

The experience may have been costly, but it was also priceless. - Peter G. Peterson

The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The most beautiful experience is the mysterious. He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead. His eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences. - Jacques Rousseau

The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate. - Doug Larson

Theories are always very thin and insubstantial, experience only is tangible. - Hosea Ballou

There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life – life's "experiences" – are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. - Mark Twain

There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience. - Unknown

To rectify past blunders is impossible, but we might profit by the experience of them. - George Washington

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. - Oscar Wilde

We are all products of our own experiences – good and bad. - Noah Bennet

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face. - Eleanor Roosevelt

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture. - Charles Caleb Colton

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. - George Bernard Shaw

We learn of great things by little experiences. - Bram Stoker

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again – and that is well; but also, she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. - Mark Twain

You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive. - Maya Angelou

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. - Albert Camus

Quote Worthy

We must accustom ourselves to the follies of others and not be astonished at the foolishness that takes place in our presence. - Magdeleine Sable

The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland

The first step to towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are. - John Pierpont Morgan

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. - William James

Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich. - Nicolas Chamfort

Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration. - William Hazlitt

Every man has his follies – and often they are the most interesting thing he has got. - Josh Billings

A dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream. - W. C. Fields

Xun Zi

            Xun Zi or  Hsün Tzu was a Chinese Confucian philosopher who lived during the Warring States Period and contributed to one of the Hundred Schools of Thought. Xun Zi believed man’s inborn tendencies need to be curbed through education and ritual, counter to Mencius’s view that man is innately good. He believed that ethical norms had been invented to rectify mankind.

           Educated in the state of Qi, Xun Zi was associated with the Confucian school, but his philosophy has a pragmatic flavour compared to Confucian optimism. Some scholars attribute it to the divisive times.

            Xun Zi was one of the most sophisticated thinkers of his time.

- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some quotes from Xun Zi

A person is born with desires of the eyes and ears, and a liking for beautiful sights and sounds. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to immorality and lack of restriction, and any ritual principles and propriety will be abandoned.

A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.

Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit. If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.

If the gentleman has ability, he is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he opens the way to instruct others.

If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest.

Music is a fantastic peacekeeper of the world, it is integral to harmony, and it is a required fundamental of human emotion

If the impulse to daring and bravery is too fierce and violent, stay it with guidance and instruction.

I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study.

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.

Experiments - Quotes

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. - Albert Einstein

The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work. - Charles F. Kettering

The true method of knowledge is experiment. - William Blake

There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes. - Richard Buckminster Fuller

When you’re experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, and you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion. - Fred Astaire

Food For Thought

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. - Robert Fulghum

There is no moment like the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards; they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence. - Maria Edgeworth

Your beloved and your friends were once strangers.  Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. - John O'Donohue

Married

           A couple had only been married for two weeks and the husband, although very much in love, couldn't wait to go out on the town and party with his old buddies.  So, he said to his new wife, "Honey, I'll be right back."

            "Where are you going, Coochy Coo?" asked the wife.

            "I'm going to the bar, Pretty Face," he answered. I'm going to have a beer."

           The wife said, "You want a beer, my love?" She opened the door to the refrigerator and showed him 25 different kinds of beer, brands from 12 different countries: Germany, Holland, Japan, India, etc.

            The husband didn't know what to do, and the only thing that he could think of saying was, "Yes, Lollipop... but at the bar... You know...they have frozen glasses... "

           He didn't get to finish the sentence, because the wife interrupted him by saying, "You want a frozen glass, Puppy Face?" She took a huge beer mug out of the freezer, so frozen that she was getting chills just holding it.

           The husband, looking a bit pale, said, "Yes, Tootsie Roll, but at the bar they have those hors d'oeuvres that are really delicious... I won't be long. I'll be right back. I promise. OK?"

           "You want hors d'oeuvres, Poochie Pooh?" She opened the oven and took out 5 dishes of different hors d'oeuvres:  chicken wings, pigs in blankets, mushroom caps, and little quiches.

           "But my sweet honey... at the bar.... you know there's swearing, dirty words and all that..."

           "You want dirty words, Cutie Pie? LISTEN UP CHICKEN SHIT! SIT YOUR ASS DOWN, SHUT THE HELL UP, DRINK YOUR BEER IN YOUR FROZEN MUG AND EAT YOUR HORS D'OEUVRES BECAUSE YOUR MARRIED ASS ISN'T GOING TO A DAMNED BAR! THAT SHIT IS OVER, GOT IT, JACKASS?"

And ... they lived happily ever after.

Life

You are Life passing through your body, passing through your mind, passing through your soul. Once you find that out, not with logic, not with the intellect, but because you can feel that Life - you find out that you are the force that makes the flowers open and close, that makes the hummingbird fly from flower to flower. You find out that you are in every tree, and you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life. -  Don Miguel Ruiz

Humans - Quotes

Ever since I was a child, I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential. - Bruce Lee

Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. - William James 

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman. - Eldridge Cleaver

The human brain is a most unusual instrument of elegant and as yet unknown capacity. - Stuart Seaton

The human mind is as driven to understand as the body is driven to survive. - Hugh Gilmore

No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another’s happiness. - Graham Greene 

There can be no word large enough to encompass the wonder of a human being. - Leo Buscaglia

Human nature, like fruit, is ripened by time. Only then is its true flavour apparent. - Validivar

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise. - Francis Bacon

The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy. - Ben Stein

A complete human being is the one who is physically healthy, emotionally mature, intellectually alert, and spiritually aware. - Unknown

One of the sources of pride in being a human being is the ability to bear present frustrations in the interests of longer purposes. - Unknown

It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue and then it is easy to find arguments against it. - Unknown

Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury. - Unknown

It is human nature to keep doing something as long as it is pleasurable and you can succeed at it. - Unknown

All we are asked to bear, we can bear. The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. - Unknown

The deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated. - Unknown

Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. - Unknown

Experts - Quotes

An expert gives an objective view. He gives his own view. - Morarji Ranchhodji Desai

An expert is a person that has his ignorance organized. - Jim O’Bryon

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. - Niels Bohr

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. - Nicholas Murray Bulter

An expert is someone who takes something you already know and makes it sound confusing. - Evan Esar

An expert is someone called in at the last minute to share the blame. - Unknown

An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. - Edward De Bono

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them. - Werner Heisenberg

Experts often possess more data than judgment. - Colin Powell

If you would be an expert, keep company with experts. - Hindustani Proverb

In order to be a world-class expert in anything, be it audiology, drama, music, art, gymnastics, whatever, one needs to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that if you put in 10,000 hours that you will become an expert, but there aren't any cases where someone has achieved world-class mastery without it! So, the time spent at the activity is indeed the most important and influential factor. - Daniel J. Levitin

Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience. - Denis Waitley

The expert at anything was once a beginner. - Hayes

The only thing worse than an expert is someone who thinks he's an expert. - Aly A. Colon

There are as many opinions as there are experts. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

When experts are wrong, it’s often because they’re experts on an earlier version of the world. - Paul Graham

Quote Worthy

Perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. - Thomas Carlyle

One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true or false. It comes to be the dominating thought in one's mind. - Robert Collier

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. - Walter Lippmann

Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity. - Gary Ryan Blair 

 

We all have voices in our heads which talks to us on an almost constant basis. Our voices give us messages continually, and what they say to us affects us. - Juliene Berk 

Happiness

You never find happiness until you stop looking for it. My greatest happiness consists precisely in doing nothing whatever that is calculated to obtain happiness: and this, in the minds of most people, is the worst possible course... If you ask "what ought to be done" and "what ought not to be done" on earth in order to produce happiness, I answer that these questions do not have an answer. There is no way of determining such things. Yet at the same time, if I cease striving for happiness, the "right' and the "wrong" at once become apparent all by themselves. Contentment and well-being at once become possible the moment you cease to act with them in view, and if you practice non-doing (wu wei), you will have both happiness and well-being. - Chuang Tzu

Food For Thought

You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended. - Garrett Hardin

Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind’ even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth. - Gandhi

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair. - Douglas Adams

Explanations - Quotes

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. - Saki

Don’t waste your time with explanations. People only hear what they want to hear. - Paulo Coelho

Few explanations ever explained the necessity of making one. - Elbert Hubbard

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway. - Elbert Hubbard

All Puns Intended

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married.

The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar.

The bartender says, "I'll serve you, But don't start anything."

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar,

And one was a salted.

4. An invisible man marries an invisible woman.

The kids were nothing to look at either.

5. A man walks into a bar  with a slab of asphalt under his arm,

And says: "A beer please, And one for the road."

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown.

One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"

7. Deja-Moo:

The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field.

Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially Inseminated this morning."

"I don't believe you," says Dolly.

"It's true; no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

9. What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A fsh.

10. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other

and says, "Dam!"

11. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire.

Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

12. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, and asked them to disperse.

"But why," they asked, as they moved off.

"Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

Life

There is meaning in every one’s life:

A man who had been condemned to a life of forced labor for wrong doings, was shipped to devil’s island. On the high seas a fire broke out on the steamer, the convict, a strong man, was released from his handcuffs to help and he saved the lives of ten persons. His sentence was commuted for the act of heroism. If one had asked him before if his life was worth saving, he probably would have shook his head.

Friends

They love you, but they are not your lover.

They care for you, but they are not from your family.

They are ready to share your pain, but they are not in your blood relation.

They are  … FRIENDS!

A true friend …

Scolds like a dad,

Cares like a mom,

Teases like a sister,

Irritates like a brother,

And finally, loves you more than a lover.

Eyes - Quotes

An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy. . . . One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness. - Margaret Atwood

Eyes are captivatingly beautiful. Not because of the colour but because of the words they hold within them. - Unknown

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. - Desiderius Erasmus

Keep your eyes on the stars, keep your feet on the ground. - Theodore Roosevelt

Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again. - Alex Tan

The eyes are the windows of the soul. - Thomas Phaer

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands. - Benjamin Franklin

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. - Henri Bergson

The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing. - Publius Syrus

The eyes of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is. - Kahlil Gibran

What could be any more correct for any people than to see with their own eyes? - Molefi Kete Asante

You see with your eyes. This means you can be misled by charm, by outward appearance. By webs of glamour, by surface pretences. - Neil Gaiman

Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them. - Obi-Wan Kenobi 

Quote Worthy

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence. - Charles Bukowski

Don’t be distracted criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bit out of you. - Zig Ziglar

It is not because it is difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult. - Seneca

Do not rely completely on any other human being; however, dear. We meet life’s greatest tests alone. - Agnes Machphail

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times. - Lord Acton Dalberg

Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good. - Norman Schwarzkopf

Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. - James Albert Michener

I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed. - Robert Schuller

Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu, also Laozi and other variations was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching. His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism (pronounced as "Daoism"). Lao Tzu translated literally from Chinese means "old master" or "old one", and is generally considered honorific.

A central figure in Chinese culture, both nobility and common people claim Lao Tzu in their lineage. Throughout history, Lao Tzu's work has been embraced by various anti-authoritarian movements.

-  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why not simply honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility for problems, practice virtue without first demanding it of others, understand the highest truths yet retain an ordinary manner? That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery.

Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things from within and unconsciously, and at last become one with heaven and earth.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honoured by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

The highest truth cannot be put into words. Therefore the greatest teacher has nothing to say. He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

Because clarity and enlightenment are within your own nature, they are regained without moving an inch.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

At the centre of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.