The voices / 246 fragments
Laozi (traditional attribution)
Life dates uncertain
Traditional attribution of the Tao Teh King, a text that invites reflection on action, restraint and the limits of force. Historical identity, authorship and life dates remain uncertain; this profile does not assign a lifespan.
Author and source reference ↗Life and writing
Laozi, the Old Master of the traditional accounts, is associated with the text also known as the Daodejing or Tao Te Ching. Scholars disagree about the historical identity behind that name and about the text’s date and authorship. A transmitted collection may preserve several stages of formation; its traditional attribution does not establish a single author’s biography.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Laozi ↗ Sections 1–2: the Laozi story, disputed identity and textual formation
The archive preserves all 81 complete chapters in James Legge’s historical English translation, including prose and verse within each chapter. Images of water, yielding and restraint can make a short passage memorable, but the full chapter helps readers see the argument and its limits. Legge’s English is one interpretive route into the received text; a modern rendering may make different choices.
Project Gutenberg — Tao Teh King, James Legge, PG 216 ↗ Checked 81 chapter source sequence and original editorial reading guidance
Reading this voice
Read a complete chapter slowly and return to its images before turning them into a rule for action. The text’s discussions of rulers and subjects belong to a historical setting, and restraint need not mean accepting harm or avoiding responsibility. Life dates and the archive timeline year remain undated. The linked digitized Legge text does not supply a printed publication year, so the reading record leaves that detail uncertain.
Subjects to explore
Editorial reading connections, distinct from the archive’s word matching.
A work to read
Begin with these archive passages
Editorial starting points from this author’s existing entries.
- 1. The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. 2. (Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things. 3. Always without desire we must be found, If its deep mystery we would sound; But if desire always within us be, Its outer fringe is all that we shall see. 4. Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.
Complete printed chapter 1; James Legge translation; Undated digitized James Legge English edition; printed publication year/publisher not supplied in this cached text
- 1. All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want of skill is. 2. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to (the idea of) the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one (the idea of) the other; that length and shortness fashion out the one the figure of the other; that (the ideas of) height and lowness arise from the contrast of the one with the other; that the musical notes and tones become harmonious through the relation of one with another; and that being before and behind give the idea of one following another. 3. Therefore the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions without the use of speech. 4. All things spring up, and there is not one which declines to show itself; they grow, and there is no claim made for their ownership; they go through their processes, and there is no expectation (of a reward for the results). The work is accomplished, and there is no resting in it (as an achievement). The work is done, but how no one can see; 'Tis this that makes the power not cease to be.
Complete printed chapter 2; James Legge translation; Undated digitized James Legge English edition; printed publication year/publisher not supplied in this cached text
- 1. The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving (to the contrary), the low place which all men dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao. 2. The excellence of a residence is in (the suitability of) the place; that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; that of associations is in their being with the virtuous; that of government is in its securing good order; that of (the conduct of) affairs is in its ability; and that of (the initiation of) any movement is in its timeliness. 3. And when (one with the highest excellence) does not wrangle (about his low position), no one finds fault with him.
Complete printed chapter 8; James Legge translation; Undated digitized James Legge English edition; printed publication year/publisher not supplied in this cached text
Profile sources and editorial status
Original agent-assisted editorial profile, checked 2026-10-04. No human review is recorded. Life dates remain uncertain; no lifespan or quotation composition date is inferred.