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Though you are highly virtuous and trustworthy, if you do not understand the people's spirits, and though you are famous and do not compete, if you do not understand the people's mind, but instead go to a tyrant and lecture him on goodness, ethical behavior, measures, and standards, you are just using the failings of others to demonstrate your own superiority. This is deliberately hurting other people. One who hurts others will in turn be hurt. You will probably end up in trouble.

— Chuang Tsu by Zhuangzi, Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English (Page 60)

Forget time; forget distinction. Enjoy the infinite; rest in it.

— Chuang Tsu by Zhuangzi, Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English (Page 44)

The hundred joints, nine openings, and six organs all function together. Which part do you prefer? Do you like them all equally, or do you have a favorite? Are they not all servants? Can they keep order among themselves, or do they take turns being masters and servants?

— Chuang Tsu by Zhuangzi, Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English (Page 23)

We are caught in the current and cannot return. We are tied up in knots like an old clogged drain; we are getting closer to death with no way to regain our youth. Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, hope and fear, indecision and strength, humility and willfulness, enthusiasm and insolence, like music sounding from an empty reed or mushrooms rising from the warm, dark earth, continually appear before us day and night. No one knows whence they came. Don't worry about it! Let them be! How can we understand it all in one day?

— Chuang Tsu by Zhuangzi, Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English (Page 20)

When men separate benefit from honourableness they subvert foundations of nature.

— On Duties by Cicero, M. T. Griffin, E. M. Atkins (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) (Page 139)

Personal wealth draw us one way, humanity the other.

— On Duties by Cicero, M. T. Griffin, E. M. Atkins (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) (Page 134)