Fake Lao Tzu Quote

"A good traveler..."

This is NOT a quote from Tao Te Ching:

"A good traveler has no fixed plans."

The Book Tao Te Ching The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. The great Taoist philosophy classic by Lao Tzu translated, and each of the 81 chapters extensively commented. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).        More about the book here.

Lao Tzu would probably be sympathetic towards such an attitude. In his view, plans should be made with caution and with high adaptability to circumstances as they evolve. One should not assume that one will arrive as intended.

       He had his doubts about travel in general. In chapter 47 he stated (my version):

The longer you travel, the less you know.

       And in chapter 80 he praised staying in one's own village, not even bothering to visit neighboring villages, although they were so near that roosters and dogs could be heard from there. has no fixed plans.

Now it's a book, too! 90 of the most spread false Lao Tzu quotes, why they are false and where they are really from. Book by Stefan Stenudd. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).        More about the book here.

       But the quote discussed here is not from Tao Te Ching — well, not a faithful translation of it.

       It is from Stephen Mitchell's very popular 1988 version of the text, the beginning of chapter 27 (page 27), with the only difference being that Mitchell wrote "upon" instead of "on." On the Internet, the simplified spelling has triumphed over Mitchell's. A Google search shows about 50 times more results for the former than for the latter.

       But it is a mystery how Mitchell got to this interpretation. My version for the same part of the chapter is:

A good wanderer leaves no trace.

       James Legge's 1891 version reads (page 70):

The skilful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels or footsteps.

       Robert G. Henricks writes in his 1989 translation (page 240):

The good traveler leaves no track behind.

       So, it is about travel, but not about the destination. One should cover one's tracks, so to speak, and people will be unaware of from where one came.

       Mitchell takes many great liberties in his whole version of Tao Te Ching. Also the next couple of lines in chapter 27 deviate considerably from the original:

A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

       Here is my version of the same part:

A good speaker does not stutter.
A good counter needs no calculator.
A good door needs no lock,
Still it can't be opened.
A good mooring needs no knot,
Still no one can untie it.

       And that of Henricks:

The good speaker [speaks] without blemish or flaw;
The good counter doesn't use tallies or chips;
The good closer of doors does so without bolt or lock, and yet the door cannot be opened;
The good tier of knots ties without rope or cord, yet his knots can't be undone.

       So, there is nothing about artists and intuition, or scientists and concepts, in Lao Tzu's text. Nothing of what it does mention — speakers, counters, doors, and knots — is included in Mitchell's version.

       Mitchell does indeed take his poetic license very far. His text is charming, but frequently quite distant from Lao Tzu. Several fake Lao Tzu quotes discussed in this book originate in his version of Tao Te Ching. This is sad, since his version has been a bestseller through the decades since its original publication. That means lots of people have their opinion of Lao Tzu from his interpretation, although it is often closer to Mitchell than to Lao Tzu.

       Stephen Mitchell is a US writer with a Zen training background, who has also written his own versions of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, Bhagavad Gita, and several other classics. His own website bio is unusually short. He has studied at Amherst, Sorbonne, and Yale, which is impressive, but he neglects to mention what he studied — probably because then he "de-educated through intensive Zen practice."

       In the foreword to his Tao Te Ching, Mitchell explained that he mainly used the version by Paul Carus from 1898, Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King, where the Chinese text is translated to English word by word, but also consulted "dozens of translations into English, German, and French." He added (page x):

But the most essential preparation for my work was a fourteen-year-long course of Zen training, which brought me face to face with Lao-tzu and his true disciples and heirs, the early Chinese Zen Masters.

       That is a strange choice, making Lao Tzu a Zen teacher although Buddhism did not reach China until hundreds of years after his time. For Chán (Zen in Chinese) it did not happen until the 5th or 6th century CE, as legend has it with the monk Bodhidharma. By that time Lao Tzu had been a revered thinker in China for at least 800 years and Taoism was a well established school of thought, with many disciples of its own.

       There are indeed similarities between Taoism and Zen, but interpreting Lao Tzu through a Zen filter risk missing the differences.

       By the way, the Carus version, with each Chinese word translated separately, supports completely the standard versions of the part of chapter 27 discussed here. It gives no support for Mitchell's wording. Here is the Carus word by word version (pages 187-188):

Good walkers have no rut [and] track.
Good speakers have no blemish [and] error.
Good counters have no counting bamboo slips.
Good lockers have no bolts [and] keys, and not one can open [their locks].
Good binders have no rope [and] string, and not one can loosen [their knots].

       Mitchell's Tao Te Ching is still (August 2020), after all these years, the most popular version of the book. Its influence on popular conception of Lao Tzu's thoughts is considerable, which is particularly obvious on the web, but also in books touching on the subject of Taoism.

       His version is easy to admire for its clarity and elegance. But it is, as stated above, frequently far from standard interpretations of the Chinese original. In this book, there are several questionable Lao Tzu quotes coming from his version.

       What impresses me most with his book is the straightforward simplicity of his wordings, and what bothers me the most is their considerable deviation from Lao Tzu's philosophy. In short, his version is more Stephen Mitchell than Lao Tzu. That is a pity, because readers are not properly made aware of it.

Quotes from Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching are discussed in a number of other chapters on this website, mainly because they have spread widely both in books and on the web. Here they all are:

Act without expectation

Be content with what you have

Because of a great love

Can you step back from your own mind

Care about what other people think

Give evil nothing to oppose

Hope and fear are both phantoms

If you realize that all things change

If you want to become whole

Knowing others

Man's enemies are not demons

My teachings are easy

Stop thinking

Success is as dangerous as failure

There is a time to live

There is no illusion

Violence, even well intentioned

When you are content

More Fake Lao Tzu Quotes

There are many more fake Lao Tzu quotes examined on this website. Click the header to see a list of them.

Fake interview with the author

Click the header to read a "fake" interview with Stefan Stenudd, the author of Fake Lao Tzu Quotes.

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