Chapter 64

What is still is easy to hold; what has not yet shown itself is easy to plan against; what is brittle is easily broken; what is tiny is easily scattered. Act on things before they appear; establish order before disorder sets in.

A tree you can barely get your arms around grew from the smallest sprout; a nine-story tower rose from a heap of earth; a journey of a thousand miles began with a single step.

Whoever acts with a hidden motive ruins things; whoever grasps in that way loses his grip. The sage does not act in this way, so he does no harm; he does not grasp, so he does not lose. People are forever spoiling their projects just when they are about to succeed. If they were as careful at the end as at the beginning, they would not spoil them.

So the sage desires what others do not desire, and does not prize things hard to obtain; he learns what others do not learn, and returns to what the crowd has passed by. In this way he supports the natural unfolding of all things and does not dare to act from motives of his own.