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This is from not-quite the Tao Te Ching.
Can you hold the door to your tent
Wide open to the firmament?
Can you, with the simple stature
Of a child, breathing nature,
Become, notwithstanding,
A man?
Can you continue befriendinn
With no prejudice, no ban?
Can you, mating with heaven,
Serve as the female part?
Can your learned head take leaven
From the wisdom of your heart?If you can bear issue and nourish its growing
If you can guide without claim or strife
If you can stay in the lead of men without their knowing
You are at the core of life.
As is this.
Of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, "We did this ourselves."
And this.
He who is open eyed is open minded.
He who is open minded is open hearted.
He who is open hearted is kingly.
He who is kingly is godly.
He who is godly is useful.
He who is useful is infinite.
He who is infinite is immune.
He who is immune is immortal.
These are the marks against which I measure myself. I like y'all too much to challenge you in this way.
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All things Tao...
(...I love all thing's of the 'Tao!')
I also love 'The Art of War' and 'The Book of Five Rings'
But, for me anyways, ultimately, all roads lead back to Rudyard Kipling's ‘IF"
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling
I also love 'The Art of War'
I could redo your whole library. You ever check out The Book of Balance and Harmony?
Thomas Cleary's translations of Taoist works were collected in two volumes (maybe three...) It's in volume two, though a slightly better translation (as in strikes my inner ear more harmoniously), still attributed to Cleary, is available as a single volume.
"Go%&@m, Pretzel Man! ...You one DEEP mother%&*@er!!!"
"Change and movement have their times; safety and danger are in oneself. Calamity and fortune, gain and loss, all start from oneself. Therefore, those who master change are those who address themselves to the time. For those who address themselves to the time, even danger is safe; for those who master change, even disturbance is orderly."
(…Yea, I’m definitely diggin’t that! I will now HAVE to check that out, to be sure! Thanks!)
If you Googled that up, you
If you Googled that up, you found a good one (Resolving Doubts), but not the best one.
I've studied every major religion, practices several schools of Yoga and meditation, and found one sentence in the book encapsulates it all. "Take the real consciousness from the overlay of conditioning that obscures it and use it to make awareness complete." Only I don't know I'd have understood it at the start. There's a Zen koan that is it's peer but nothing surpasses it.
Watch out though...after chapter 6 it gets deep into Taoist alchemical symbolism.