Liezi Quotes on Knowledge
The Liezi, traditionally attributed to the early Daoist sage Lie Yukou (conventionally placed in the fifth or fourth century BCE) but in its received form an assemblage of materials of considerably later date, supplies the classical Daoist canon with one of its principal philosophical treatments of the relativity of knowing perspectives. The famous parables — the dream butterfly's indistinguishability of dream from waking, the man who lost his axe and saw a thief in every neighbor, the cosmic sage Liezi riding the wind itself — press the case that fixed cognitive standpoints deceive the philosopher who has not yet recognized the spontaneous self-so character (ziran) of the Dao that runs through every situation.
Quotes
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Attributed to Liezi:
“Not knowing how far one's words may travel, one should not waste them on the careless.”
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“While sounds are heard, that which made the sounds has not yet begun to resonate.”
Wikiquote -
“By knowing and doing nothing, you can know all and do all.”
Wikiquote -
“A parallel to Zhuangzi section 18.6”
Lieh-tzu left his home in Cheng and journeyed to the kingdom of Wei. While walking down a dusty road, he saw the remains of a skull lying by the wayside. Lieh-tzu saw that it was the skull of a human that was over a hundred years old. He picked up the bone, brushed the dirt off it, and looked at it for a while. Finally, he put the skull down, sighed, and said to his student who was standing nearby -
“Many people sweat and toil and feel satisfied that they have accomplished many things. However, in the end we are not all that different from this polished piece of bone. In a hundred years, everyone we know will be just a pile of bones. What is there to gain in life, and what is there to lose in death?”
Wikiquote -
“Note: in Daoist tradition, Confucius, along with numerous other perceived "sages", are often used to explain the author's own views on a subject, regardless of the actual views of that figure. Historically, Confucians frequently feuded with Daoists, and many sections of works such as the Zhuangzi are devoted to mocking their views. Other prominent philosophers of Liezi's era, including Gongung Long and Yang Zhu, are used for the same purpose in the Liezi .”
Then who do you think is a sage?", [the minister asked.] Confucius would not be hurried, so he waited until the minister calmed down again and replied, "Maybe far away in the West is a person who doesn’t talk about the art of government and yet his country is orderly and peaceful. He rarely speaks about promises but he is trusted by all. He does not use force, so everything runs smoothly. His hear -
“A wise ruler does not let personal grudges cloud his judgment of people’s abilities. Moreover, a good ruler always thinks about the welfare of his country first and his personal needs second.”
Passage 64:The Friendship of Guan Zheng and Bao Shuya -
“If heaven does not know, how can mortals know? If heaven does not bless you, crying won’t help. If we all weep together, Will it lengthen life and chase away death? Even doctors and shamans arc not miracle workers.”
Passage 66:The Three Doctors -
“A person with a mind cannot know; If you can point to it, then you cannot reach it; You can never finish dividing something; A shadow cannot move; A single hair can hold up a thousand stones; A white horse is not a horse; An orphaned calf has never had a mother.”
Passage 45:The Strange Arguments of Gongsung Long | This is a reference to the historical Gongsung Long, of the School of Logicians, who distinguished between categories and members of those categories by famously proclaiming "A White Horse is not a Ho