The Tao Te Ching came into existence some 2500 years ago, since when it has become the most influential text of Eastern philosophy. Best translated as The Classic of the Way and its Power (or Virtue), its teachings are of simplicity, humility and \"non-action\", and its cadenced poetry is at once spare and profound....

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. 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....

Written some 2,500 years ago, the Tao Te Ching is the most influential Chinese book of all time. The title can be translated as The Book of the Way and Virtue and its verses are no less than an attempt to sum up the cosmos and human beings\" place within it....

\"All things end in the Tao just as the small streams and the largest rivers flow through the valleys to the sea.\" The Tao Te Ching came into existence some 2,500 years ago, since when it has become the most influential text of Eastern philosophy....

\"Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible\" Whether or not Lao Tzu was a historical figure is uncertain, but the wisdom gathered under his name in the fourth century BC is central to the understanding and practice of Taoism....