“The soft overcomes the hard; and the weak the strong.”

“Тhe gentle overcomes the rigid.The slow overcomes the fast.The weak overcomes the strong."…"Everyone knows that the yielding overcomes the stiff,and the soft overcomes the hard.Yet no one applies this knowledge.”

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”

“Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below, and that of what is soft and weak is above.”

“...no woman can love a weak man hard enough to make him strong.”

“...Hard people are weak people whom nobody wants, and the strong, caring little whether they are wanted or not, have alone that meekness which the common herd mistake for weakness.”