Daodejing - Chapter Forty Eight

 

道德經  - 第四十八章

為學日益，為道日損。

損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。

取天下常以無事，及其有事，不足以取天下。

Daodejing - Chapter Forty Eight

(Forgetting knowledge)

Those who devote themselves to learning, seek to gain something beneficial from day to day; 

Those who devote themselves to the Dao, seek to diminish something harmful from day to day.

They diminish it again and again, until they arrive at doing nothing (that is harmful and that is often based on human dao only).

Having arrived at this point of non-action (Wuwei), then there is nothing that they cannot do.

Successful leaders as a rule do not initiate unnecessary events. 

If they initiate unnecessary events, they are inadequate to be successful.

References

1. The English translation is based on the translation by James Legge.
2. The Chinese text is based on the Daodejing in the ctext.org website : https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing.