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Chapter 46 · When the Tao Prevails Chapter Jump to chapter 1 · The Nameless Origin 2 · The Rise of Opposites 3 · Emptying the Mind 4 · The Fountainless Vessel 5 · Heaven's Impartial Bellows 6 · The Valley Spirit 7 · Long Enduring by Self-Forgetting 8 · The Excellence of Water 9 · The Peril of Fullness 10 · Embracing the One 11 · The Use of Emptiness 12 · The Senses and the Belly 13 · Favour and Disgrace Alike Feared 14 · The Formless Form 15 · The Ancient Masters of the Tao 16 · Returning to the Root 17 · The Best of Rulers Unnoticed 18 · When the Great Tao Is Lost 19 · Renouncing Cleverness 20 · Alone Among the Multitude 21 · The Nature of the Tao 22 · The Partial Made Whole 23 · Nature's Brief Storms 24 · Tiptoe Does Not Stand Firm 25 · Something Undefined and Complete 26 · Gravity the Root of Lightness 27 · Hiding the Light of Procedure 28 · The Return to Simplicity 29 · The Kingdom Cannot Be Grasped 30 · Against the Sway of Arms 31 · Arms as Instruments of Evil Omen 32 · The Nameless Simplicity 33 · Knowing Others, Knowing Oneself 34 · The Great Tao Flows Everywhere 35 · The Great Image 36 · The Soft Overcomes the Hard 37 · The Tao's Constant Non-Action 38 · On Attributes, Higher and Lower 39 · Things That Have Attained Oneness 40 · The Movement of the Tao 41 · Scholars High, Middle, and Low 42 · One, Two, Three, and All Things 43 · The Advantage of Doing Nothing 44 · Fame, Life, and Wealth 45 · Great Perfection Seems Incomplete 46 · When the Tao Prevails 47 · Knowing Without Travelling 48 · Daily Decrease Toward the Tao 49 · The Sage Has No Fixed Mind 50 · Life, Death, and the Rhinoceros 51 · The Tao Nourishes All Things 52 · Guarding the Mother 53 · Robbers and Boasters 54 · What Is Well Planted 55 · The Infant's Undivided Virtue 56 · The Mysterious Agreement 57 · Governing by Non-Action 58 · Good Fortune Beside Misery 59 · Moderation and Long Endurance 60 · Governing as Cooking Small Fish 61 · The Great State's Low Place 62 · The Tao as the World's Treasure 63 · Acting Without Acting 64 · A Single Step Begins the Journey 65 · Simplicity Over Cunning 66 · Why Rivers and Seas Are Kings 67 · Three Precious Things 68 · The Virtue of Not Contending 69 · The Guest, Not the Host 70 · Easy Words, Rarely Practised 71 · Knowing That We Do Not Know 72 · When the People Fear No Longer 73 · Heaven's Wide, Unfailing Net 74 · The Great Carpenter of Death 75 · Taxed into Famine 76 · The Soft and the Strong 77 · The Bow of Heaven 78 · Water's Hidden Strength 79 · No Partiality in Heaven's Way 80 · The Small State, Content 81 · Sincere Words Are Not Fine Tao Te Ching (Legge, 1891) · chapter title added by Learn the Dao
When the Tao prevails in the world, they send back their swift horses to (draw) the dung-carts. When the Tao is disregarded in the world, the war-horses breed in the border lands.
There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one's lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency. ← Chapter 45 Study this chapter Chapter 47 →