1001Philosophers

Lao Tzu vs Zhuangzi

Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi are the two foundational figures of philosophical Daoism. Lao Tzu's Daodejing and Zhuangzi's Zhuangzi are the canonical Daoist texts, and the two thinkers should be read together as the joint origin of the tradition.

At a glance

Lao TzuZhuangzi
Datesc. 571 BC – c. 471 BCc. 370 BC – c. 287 BC
NationalityChineseChinese
EraAncientAncient
Movements Taoism Taoism
Profile Lao Tzu → Zhuangzi →

Where they agree

Both held that the dao is prior to all distinctions and cannot be adequately captured in language, both rejected Confucian ritual and the cultivation of explicit virtue as missing what is essential, and both held that the sage acts spontaneously rather than from rule or calculation. Both used paradox, parable, and indirection as philosophical methods.

Where they disagree

Lao Tzu's Daodejing is gnomic, aphoristic, and closely concerned with sage-rulership and political renewal. Zhuangzi's Zhuangzi is sprawling, narrative, and skeptical, more interested in the predicaments of the individual sage than in political reform, and famously concerned with the relativity of human perspectives — most memorably in the butterfly dream. Lao Tzu's Daoism is closer to a political philosophy of withdrawn and minimal rulership; Zhuangzi's is closer to a philosophical art of living that is suspicious of all categorical distinctions.

Representative quotes

Lao Tzu

  • “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

    Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64

  • “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

    interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992) | Variant translation by Lin Yutang : "He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise".

  • “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”

    Tao Te Ching, Chapter 56

Zhuangzi

  • “The great bird rises on the wind to a height of a thousand miles. What does it see from on high there in the blue? Is it droves of wild horses galloping? Is it primeval matter whirling in atomic dust? Is it the exhalations that give birth to all things? Is it the blue of the sky itself, or is it only the colour of infinite distance?”

    Ch. 1 (tr. Anthony Watson-Gandy and Terence Gordon, from the French of René Grousset, 1952)

  • “Ch. 1 (tr. Anthony Watson-Gandy and Terence Gordon, from the French of René Grousset, 1952)”

    The great bird rises on the wind to a height of a thousand miles. What does it see from on high there in the blue? Is it droves of wild horses galloping? Is it primeval matter whirling in atomic dust? Is it the exhalations that give birth to all things? Is it the blue of the sky itself, or is it only the colour of infinite distance?

  • “Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.”

    Ch. 2 (tr. Lin Yutang, 1942)

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