Dharma & Dao

Tao Te Ching · Chapter 70 of 81

Chapter 70

modern paraphrase of James Legge's 1891 translation

Modern paraphrase. This is an AI-generated retelling in contemporary English (model: claude-opus-4-7). It is not the James Legge translation. The original is one click away.

  1. My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice; yet no one in the world is able to understand them or able to practice them.

  2. My words have a source, and my actions have a guiding principle. Because people do not grasp this, they do not understand me.

  3. Few understand me, and that is what makes me valuable. This is why the sage wears coarse cloth on the outside while carrying jade close to his heart.

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