Zhuangzi Quotes on Nature
Zhuangzi was a Chinese Taoist philosopher of the fourth century BC, regarded with Lao Tzu as one of the two foundational figures of philosophical Taoism. This page collects quotes attributed to Zhuangzi on the topic of nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Zhuangzi:
“He who knows the activity of Heaven and the activity of man is perfect.”
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Attributed to Zhuangzi:
“Just rest in inaction, and things will transform themselves.”
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“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) -
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.”
Zhuangzi | Ch. 8 (tr. Lin Yutang, 1942) -
“Resolve your mental energy into abstraction, your physical energy into inaction. Allow yourself to fall in with the natural order of phenomena, without admitting the element of self,—and the empire will be governed.”
Zhuangzi | Ch. 7 (tr. Herbert A. Giles, 1889)