Tao Te Ching
THE TAOISM OF LAO TZU

     
     


Fake Lao Tzu Quote

"The soul has no secret..."

Fake Lao Tzu quote: The soul has no secret...

This is NOT a quote from Tao Te Ching:


"The soul has no secret that the behavior does not reveal."



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Tao Te Ching — The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. Book by Stefan Stenudd. 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).

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The soul as we see it is not a concept with which Lao Tzu would be familiar. When we speak of the soul, we incorporate ideas of a Christian tradition, suggesting among other things something separate from the body — maybe even surviving it. Lao Tzu did not express a belief in an afterlife or anything in man separable from his body.

       Well, we use 'soul' for so many different things relating to the human mind and awareness. So, it is possible to use it, carefully, in the translation of an ancient Chinese text. I have done so in my version of Tao Te Ching, at the start of Chapter 10:


Can you make your soul embrace the One
And not lose it?


       Where my interpretation and many others write 'soul,' the Chinese text speaks of two concepts that should be combined: ying and p'o. They are difficult to translate, but suggest two sides of the human mind: spiritual and physical. A daring comparison, somewhat doubtful, would be consciousness and instinct. But that's stretching it. Anyway, what Lao Tzu referred to was the human mind as a whole, its parts combined.


Fake Lao Tzu Quotes — Erroneous Tao Te Ching Citations Examined. Book by Stefan Stenudd. 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.


       Writing this, I'm starting to think I should have used another word than soul in my translation -- if I could just find the accurate one.

       The same goes for behavior. This broad term could also be used, though carefully, in a translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.

       Still, the main problem with this fake Lao Tzu quote is that it points to the psyche of an individual personality, which is far from how Lao Tzu regarded mankind. It's a modern view of the mind as something internal, hidden from the minds of others and using this secrecy to get ahead.

       To Lao Tzu, human beings were basically the same, and so was their mentality. Some got wiser and thereby acted nobly, in accordance with Tao, the Way. The others were driven by basic needs and urges that were far from secret.

       The idea that anyone would try to hide and even fake his personality was alien to Lao Tzu. He did not even say something that suggested people have personalities different from those of others. To him, we are all pretty much the same. The differences are in what we understand, not what we strive to be.

       He did see actions, which can be translated to behavior, as what revealed the wisdom acquired. The wise would act according to their wisdom, as would the unwise according to their lack of it. Pretense had nothing to do with it, since they could do nothing else.

       I haven't found a Tao Te Ching version containing the quote examined here. Nor did I find it in a Google book search. It seems to have appeared on the Internet.

       A Facebook search finds the first appearance of the fake quote on October 17, 2013, giving neither Lao Tzu nor anyone else as the source. It didn't reappear on Facebook until 2016, where it got accredited to Lao Tzu.

       There is, though, a similar quote:


The soul has no secrets which the conduct will not reveal.


       This wording has quite another background. I found it in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use, by David Evans Macdonnel, published 1803 (4th edition, 1st edition 1799). According to the author, it's a Chinese proverb he translated from its French version: "L'âme n'a point de secret que la conduite ne révèle."

       The French wording can be found in Abrégé du Journal de Paris, p. 359, where it is also explained as a Chinese proverb (maxime). The book was printed in Paris 1789 -- a year of revolutionary significance in that city. But the quote is from a 1777 article of the Journal.

       It is not difficult to see how a Chinese proverb becomes accredited to the most legendary of Chinese philosophers. But Lao Tzu said nothing of the kind.

Stefan Stenudd
April 18, 2017, revised September 10, 2020.



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Tao Te Ching — The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. Book by Stefan Stenudd. 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.

       More about the book here.

Tao Quotes — the Ancient Wisdom of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. Book by Stefan Stenudd. Tao Quotes

The Ancient Wisdom of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. 389 quotes from the foremost Taoist classic, divided into 51 prominent topics. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).

       More about the book here.

Fake Lao Tzu Quotes — Erroneous Tao Te Ching Citations Examined. Book by Stefan Stenudd. Fake Lao Tzu Quotes

Erroneous Tao Te Ching Citations Examined. 90 of the most spread false Lao Tzu quotes, why they are false and where they are really from. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).

       More about the book here.



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