There was a quote attributed to Lao Tzu I saw on tiktok the other day, and I was pretty damn sure it was nowhere in the Tao Te Ching, but I was curious if there was some weird translation out there I wasn’t aware of.
The conversation went EXACTLY like this. Like down to the word.
If you look into the original sources, it gets confusing pretty quickly. There’s a bunch of other sources (e.g. the zhuangzi) that assign quotes to Lao Tzu, but they’re probably made up.
However, Lao Tzu probably didn’t write the Tao Te Ching, so 🤷♂️.
“Simplicity in governance is essential, just like they have in the United States Constitution. That thing is only like 19 pages long. I read the whole thing.” -Lao Tzu
There was a quote attributed to Lao Tzu I saw on tiktok the other day, and I was pretty damn sure it was nowhere in the Tao Te Ching, but I was curious if there was some weird translation out there I wasn’t aware of.
The conversation went EXACTLY like this. Like down to the word.
If you look into the original sources, it gets confusing pretty quickly. There’s a bunch of other sources (e.g. the zhuangzi) that assign quotes to Lao Tzu, but they’re probably made up.
However, Lao Tzu probably didn’t write the Tao Te Ching, so 🤷♂️.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi
Basically, by making shit up and saying Lao Tzu said it, tiktok is continuing a long Chinese tradition.
I’m confused, what was the quote talking about? Surely not the US Constitution…
“Simplicity in governance is essential, just like they have in the United States Constitution. That thing is only like 19 pages long. I read the whole thing.” -Lao Tzu
Confucius say “I doubt that, but OK”.