Chapter 63
What is at rest is easy to hold; what has not yet shown signs is easy to plan for.
What is brittle is easy to break apart; what is minute is easy to disperse.
Act upon things before they come into being; govern situations before they become chaotic.
A tree that fills the arms' embrace grows from a tiny sprout; a tower of nine stories rises from heaped earth; a journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet.
Those who force things defeat them; those who grasp things lose them.
Thus the sage, through non-forcing, has nothing defeated; through non-grasping, has nothing lost.
When people undertake affairs, they constantly defeat them just as they near completion.
Be as careful at the end as at the beginning, and there will be no defeated affairs. Therefore the sage desires non-desire, and does not prize goods difficult to obtain; learns non-learning, and returns to what the multitude has passed by - in order to assist the natural unfolding of the ten thousand things, yet does not presume to act.