Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, fluttering happily about, unaware he was Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and there he was, unmistakably Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou.
昔者荘周夢為胡蝶、栩栩然胡蝶也。自喩適志与、不知周也。俄然覚、則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶与、胡蝶之夢為周与。
Philosophers
Zhuang Zhou
Born in the state of Song during China's Warring States period (4th century BCE), Zhuangzi was the great synthesizer of Daoist thought. Through vivid parables — the butterfly dream, Cook Ding carving an ox — he taught the relativity of all things and the ideal of wuwei (effortless action). Alongside Laozi, he left behind the Zhuangzi in thirty-three chapters, one of the two foundational classics of Daoism. His life of rejecting power and insisting on the freedom of the spirit continues to influence philosophy, East and West, twenty-three centuries later.
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Zhuang Zhou's Other Quotes
My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous.
In the northern darkness there is a fish called Kun. The Kun is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans. It transforms into a bird called Peng. The back of the Peng is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans.
Cook Ding was carving an ox for Lord Wenhui. His hand touched, his shoulder leaned, his foot stepped, his knee pressed — and with every swish and whistle the cleaver moved in perfect rhythm.
You are not a fish — how do you know the fish's pleasure?
Heaven and earth were born together with me, and the ten thousand things are one with me.
Related Quotes
For thinking and Being are the same.
-- Parmenides
You must learn all things: both the steadfast heart of well-rounded Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.
-- Parmenides
Imagine prisoners chained underground since childhood, seeing only shadows on a wall and taking them for reality.
-- Plato
I know that I know nothing.
-- Socrates
Color exists by convention, sweet by convention, bitter by convention; in reality there are only atoms and void.
-- Democritus
Those who understand that things arise dependently know them to be empty.
-- Nagarjuna