Tao Te Ching

Standard Ebooks
14 reviews
Ebook
187
Pages
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Eligible

About this ebook

The Tao Te Ching is a classic Chinese text written around the 6th century BC by Laozi, a Zhou-dynasty courtier. While its authorship is debated, the text remains a fundamental building block of Taoism and one of the most influential works of its time. Today it’s one of the most-translated works in the world.

The work itself is a series of 81 short poetic sections, each one written in a fluid, ambiguous style, leaving them open to wide interpretation. Subjects range from advice to those in power to advice to regular people and adages for daily living. Because of its ambiguous nature the Tao Te Ching is famously difficult to translate, and many, if not all, translations are significantly influenced by the translator’s state of mind. This translation is by James Legge, a famous Scottish sinologist and the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University.


This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

The Tao Te Ching is a classic Chinese text written around the 6th century BC by Laozi, a Zhou-dynasty courtier. While its authorship is debated, the text remains a fundamental building block of Taoism and one of the most influential works of its time. Today it’s one of the most-translated works i...

Ratings and reviews

14 reviews
Michael DeRuiter
August 6, 2023
This is an excellent edition in prose of this widely-read Chinese classic.
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Suzanne Winterowd
October 4, 2022
Life Changing
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Mistr_D Joshua Dolezal
June 24, 2022
Excellent Tao
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