“If you abandon the sage and wisdom, the people will benefit and have faith; if you abandon the righteousness, the people will be filial and compassionate; if you abandon the skillful and profitable, there will be no thieves.” Interpretation: If you abandon the so-called wisdom of the sages, the people will gain a hundredfold benefit; Abandon the so-called reputation of benevolence and righteousness, and the people will return to their filial and compassionate nature; abandon the greed for profit, and thieves will become extinct.
“If you abandon the sage and wisdom, the people will benefit and have faith; if you abandon the benevolent and righteous, the people will return to filial piety and kindness; if you abandon the skillful and profitable, there will be no thieves.” This comes from the philosophical work “Morality” by Laozi (Li Er) of Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period. through". Excerpt from the original text:
If you abandon the sage and abandon wisdom, the people will benefit a hundred times; if you abandon the benevolent and righteous, the people will return to filial piety and kindness; if you abandon the skillful and profitable, there will be no thieves. These three, considered literary, are not enough. Therefore, the order is to belong to something: be simple and simple, have few selfish desires, and have no worries about learning.
Translation:
Eliminate the concept of authority in your mind, stop yourself from being superstitious about anyone else’s opinions, and abandon subjective opinions that you think are correct and smart, and the people will gain a hundred times the benefits. ; Abandon the so-called reputation of benevolence and righteousness, and the people will return to their filial and compassionate nature; abandon the greed for profit, and thieves will become extinct.
Sage wisdom, benevolence and righteousness, and cleverness are all clever decorations. They are not enough to govern social pathologies. Therefore, it is necessary to make people's thoughts and understandings belong, maintain their pure and simple nature, and reduce Only by abandoning selfish desires and distracting thoughts and the superficial words of sage wisdom and rituals can we avoid worries.
Extended information:
"Tao Te Ching", a philosophical work by Lao Tzu (Li Er) during the Spring and Autumn Period, also known as "Tao Te Ching", "Lao Tzu" and "Five Thousand Words" , "Laozi's Five Thousand Essays" is a work written by the pre-Qin scholars in ancient China before they split up. It is an important source of Taoist philosophical thought.
Laozi tried to apply the idea of ??dialectics to social governance. In Chapter 19, Lao Tzu proposed: "If you abandon the sage and abandon wisdom, the people will benefit a hundred times; if you abandon the benevolent and righteous, the people will return to filial piety and kindness; if you abandon the skillful and profitable, there will be no thieves. These three people think that literature is not enough, so they have something to do with it; see Su Bao Simplicity means less selfishness and less desire; unrivaled knowledge means no worries." This chapter proposes a solution to social ills. In the previous chapter, Lao Tzu said, "When wisdom comes, there is great hypocrisy."
Therefore, this chapter advocates abandoning this kind of cleverness. It is believed that "sage" and "wisdom" produce the rule of law with skill and deceit, and using the rule of law to govern a country with skill and deceit becomes a "promising" government that disturbs the people. By abandoning this kind of political behavior that disturbs the people, the people can get tangible benefits. In this chapter, many books end with "Less selfishness and few desires" and start the next chapter with "Exquisite learning and worry-free".
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia - Tao Te Ching · Absolute Saint and Abandon Wisdom