#23*

Speak rarely like Nature.
Typhoons do not blow all morning.
Thunderstorms do not last all day.
Who makes the typhoon to blow and storm to thunder? Heaven and earth.
If even Heaven and Earth cannot sustain things for long, even less a human being.

Those committed to the Way (Dao) are on the way.
Those committed to Virtue (De) achieve virtue
While those who lose it are themselves lost.

Being on the way is enhanced by expressing virtue
And diminished by those who have lost virtue.

*Translation by LU Wenlong & Keith Wayne Brown, ©2013.

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