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If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.
"If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it."— Lao Tzu
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Meaning of this quote
Trying to possess or force a complex world can damage what one wants to improve. The passage favours restraint and attention to conditions rather than a ban on all useful change.
Key takeaway:
Understand a system before trying to force it into your preferred shape.
Origin of the quote
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 29, Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English translation, with a shortened second instruction.
Who actually said this?
VerifiedThe cited translation contains both underlying instructions. The post omits the conditional opening of the second one; credit the translators and note the abridgment.
