56.
        Those who know do not talk.
        Those who talk do not know.

        Keep your mouth closed.
        Guard your senses.
        Temper your sharpness.
        Simplify your problems.
        Mask your brightness.
        Be at one with the dust of the Earth.
        This is the primal union.

        He who has achieved this state is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
        with good and harm,
        with honor and disgrace.
        This therefore is the highest state of man.
      

        63.
        Practice non-action.
        Work without doing.
        Taste the tasteless.
        Magnify the small, increase the few.
        Reward bitterness with care.

        See simplicity in the complicated.
        Achieve greatness in little things.

        In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy.
        In the universe great acts are made up of small deeds.
        The sage does not attempt anything very big, and thus achieved greatness.

        Easy promises make for little trust.
        Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
        Because the sage always confronts difficulties, he never experiences them.
      

        64.
        Peace is easily maintained; Trouble is easily overcome before it starts.
        The brittle is easily shattered; The small is easily scattered.

        Deal with things before they happen.
        Put things in order before there is confusion.

        A tree as great as a man's embrace springs from a small shoot;
        A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth;
        A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's foot.

        Those who act defeat their own purpose;
        Those who grasp lose.
        The wise do not act and so are not defeated.
        They do not grasp and therefore do not lose.

        People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
        So give as much care to the end as to the beginning; Then there will be no failure.

        Therefore the wise seek freedom from desire.
        They do not collect precious things.
        They learn not to hold onto ideas.
        They bring people back to what they have lost.
        They help the ten thousand things find their own nature, yet they refrain from action.
      

        I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing.
        when it started out, it was an awful lot of fun.  Of course, the paying customers got shafted
        every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously.  We began to
        feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these
        machines.  I don't think we are.  I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them
        off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house.  I hope the field of computer science never
        loses its sense of fun.  Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries.  Don't feel as if you're
        Bible salesmen.  The world has too many of those already.  What you know about computing other
        people will learn.  Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands.
        What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more
        than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.

        Alan J. Perlis
      

        4. Every program is a part of some other program and rarely fits.
      

        15.
        The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
        The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
        Because it is unfathomable, all we can do is describe their appearance.
        Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
        Alert, like men aware of danger.
        Courteous, like visiting guests.
        Yielding like ice about to melt.
        Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood.
        Hollow, like caves.
        Opaque, like muddy pools.

        Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?
        Who can remain still until the moment of action?
        Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.
        Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.