Laozi · Complete work
Chapter 70
Chapter 70 of 81. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal Classical Chinese
吾言甚易知，甚易行。天下莫能知，莫能行。言有宗，事有君。夫唯無知，是以不我知。知我者希，則我者貴。是以聖人被褐懷玉。
Mouseia
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the original source for fidelity, modern clarity, beauty, symbolism, and structure.
My words are very easy to understand, very easy to practice.No one under Heaven can understand them; no one can practice them.Words have an ancestor; affairs have a sovereign.Only because this is not understood am I not understood.Those who understand me are few; those who take me as their measure are precious.Thus the sage wears coarse cloth and carries jade within.
OpenTao
Complete CC BY 4.0 translation made directly from the received Chinese text; source line structure preserved.
My words are very easy to understand, very easy to put into practice.Yet no one under heaven can understand them; no one can put them into practice.My words descend from an ancestor; my actions answer to a lord.Only because they do not know this do they fail to know me.Those who understand me are few; those who pattern themselves on me are precious.Thus the sage wears coarse cloth, with jade concealed against the breast.
James Legge (1891)
Complete public-domain translation made directly from the original source text.
1. My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practise; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practise them.
2. There is an originating and all-comprehending (principle) in my words, and an authoritative law for the things (which I enforce). It is because they do not know these, that men do not know me.
3. They who know me are few, and I am on that account (the more) to be prized. It is thus that the sage wears (a poor garb of) hair cloth, while he carries his (signet of) jade in his bosom.