Tao Te Ching

The most influential Taoist book, reputedly written down in one night by the 6th-century BC sage Lao Zi as he left China for the West, although it appears in fact to date from the 3rd century BC. The short book is divided into 81 chapters which contain oracle sayings or proverbs with commentary.

The texts are ancient and seem to have been collected around the name of Lao Zi (the name simply means ‘the old master’). The writing is terse and thought-provoking and it is something of a handbook of statecraft as well as of wisdom in general. It is probably the best-known Chinese text in the West.