Lao-tzu (604 BC-531 BC)

Laozi was a legendary Chinese philosopher considered to be the author of the Tao Te Ching, one of the foundational texts of Taoism. Modern scholarship generally regards his biographical details as later inventions and his opus a collaboration of various writers, with the name Laozi, literally meaning 'Old Master', likely intended to portray an archaic anonymity that could converse with Confucianism. Traditional accounts addend him as Li Er, born in the 6th-century BC state of Chu during China's Spring and Autumn period. Serving as the royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng, he met and impressed Confucius on one occasion, composing the Dào Dé Jīng in a single session before retiring into the western wilderness.

Quotes

To conquer others is to have power, to conquer yourself is to know the way.
Heaven endures and the earth last a long time because they do not live for themselves.
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Water is fluid, soft and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.
Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.

Greed, Happiness
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The journey of a thousand leagues begins from beneath your feet.
The good man is the teacher of the bad,
And the bad is the material from which the good may learn.
He who does not value the teacher,
Or greatly care for the material,
Is greatly deluded although he may be learned.
Such is the essential mystery.
A good manager is best when people barely know that he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him.
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
Know the masculine, keep to the feminine.
[Advise] the ruler to govern the state as one cooks a small fish -- that is, don't turn it so often in the pan that it disintegrates.
Learning builds daily accumulation, but the prictice of Tao builds daily simplification. Simplify and simplify, until all contamination from relative, contridictory thinking is eliminated. Then one does nothing, yet nothing is left undone. One who wins the world does so by not meddling with it. One who meddles with the world loses it.
When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil.
The best [man] is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in [lowly] places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.
To produce things and to rear them,
To produce, but not to take possession of them,
To act, but not to rely on one's own ability,
To lead them, but not to master them -
This is called profound and secret virtue.
He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire.

Body
Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

Desire, Selfishness, Simplicity
To have little is to possess.
To have plenty is to be perplexed.

Possessions