Tao Te Ching — Chapter 63

Act without forcing; work without meddling; taste what has no taste. Treat the small as great and the few as many; repay injury with Virtue. Plan for the difficult while it is still easy; work at the great while it is still small. The most difficult things in the world must begin while they are easy; the greatest things in the world must begin while they are small. So the sage never attempts anything great — and for that reason is able to accomplish what is great. One who promises lightly is sure to keep little faith; one who takes things too easily is sure to meet much hardship. So the sage treats even the easy as difficult, and in the end has no difficulty at all.

James Legge (1891)

(It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting; to conduct affairs without (feeling the) trouble of them; to taste without discerning any flavour; to consider what is small as great, and a few as many; and to recompense injury with kindness. (The master of it) anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things. He who lightly promises is sure to keep but little faith; he who is continually thinking things easy is sure to find them difficult. Therefore the sage sees difficulty even in what seems easy, and so never has any difficulties.

Dwight Goddard (1919)

One should avoid assertion (wu wei) and practice inaction. One should learn to find taste in the tasteless, to enlarge the small things, and multiply the few. He should respond to hatred with kindness. He should resolve a difficulty while it is easy, and manage a great thing while it is small. Surely all the world's difficulties arose from slight causes, and all the world's great affairs had small beginnings. Therefore the wise man avoids to the end participation in great affairs and by so doing establishes his greatness. Rash promises are lacking in faith and many things that appear easy are full of difficulties. Therefore the wise man considers every thing difficult and so to the end he has no difficulties.

The chapter opens with three compressed paradoxes that condense the whole Taoist posture: wei wu wei (act without forcing), shi wu shi (handle affairs without making a fuss of them), wei wu wei (taste the tasteless). Then a line that leaps out of its context with startling moral force: bao yuan yi de — repay injury with Virtue, return resentment with kindness. It is a small phrase that would later be debated against Confucius, who, asked about it, replied that one should repay injury with justice and kindness only with kindness. Lao Tzu's instruction is more radical: meet even the wrong done to you with de.

The body of the chapter is one of the Tao Te Ching's most practical teachings on action: tu nan yu qi yi, wei da yu qi xi — address the difficult while it is still easy, and the great while it is still small. Every hard thing was once easy; every great thing was once small. The wise act at the early, manageable stage, before problems metastasize. The result is the chapter's elegant paradox: sheng ren zhong bu wei da, gu neng cheng qi da — the sage never attempts the great as such, and precisely thereby accomplishes greatness, because they have attended faithfully to the small beginnings. Two closing cautions sharpen it: easy promises breed broken trust, and treating things as easy breeds hardship — so the sage treats even the easy as difficult, takes everything seriously, and in the end meets no difficulty at all.

"Repay injury with Virtue" stands beside the Sermon on the Mount's "do not resist the evildoer... love your enemies" and the Buddhist Dhammapada's "hatred is never appeased by hatred; it is appeased by love alone." The instinct to break the cycle of retaliation by answering harm with good is one of the great convergent ethical discoveries of the human spirit.

"The greatest things begin while they are small" became, centuries later, the seed of the next chapter's famous "journey of a thousand miles" — and it parallels the Gospel parable of the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds growing into the greatest of shrubs, and the universal wisdom that what is decisive is usually attended to, or neglected, at its small beginning.

Great difficulties and great achievements alike begin small and easy; the wise attend to them at that early, manageable stage rather than waiting until they have grown unmanageable. By faithfully handling the small, one accomplishes the great without ever grandly attempting it. And the most generous response to being wronged is not retaliation but to meet injury with good.

The operational core of this chapter is among the most actionable wisdom in the book: address problems while they are still small and easy, because every crisis was once a minor issue, and every great accomplishment was once a small step taken on time. "The sage treats the easy as difficult" is a charter against complacency — taking the small thing seriously now is what prevents the large difficulty later. And "repay injury with Virtue" remains a quietly revolutionary practice in any conflict — personal, professional, or civic — where the reflex to retaliate guarantees escalation, and the choice to answer harm with good is the only thing that breaks the cycle.