Q0164

Zhuangzi

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Therefore it is said: The consummate person has no self; the spiritual person has no merit; the sage has no name.
Thinker Zhuangzi
School Daoism
Source Zhuangzi, Free and Easy Wandering
Theme Freedom
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Zhuangzi, Free and Easy Wandering, within the tradition of Daoism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of freedom, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Zhuangzi's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Zhuangzi. (n.d.). Therefore it is said: The consummate person has no self; the spiritual person has no merit; the sage has no name. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0164

MLA: Zhuangzi. “Therefore it is said: The consummate person has….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0164.

Chicago: Zhuangzi. “Therefore it is said: The consummate person has….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0164.

Same thinker

More from Zhuangzi

  1. My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous!
  2. When the springs dry up and fish are stranded together on land, they moisten one another with dampness and wet one another with foam — but better to forget one another in the rivers and lakes.
  3. Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly…He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou.
  4. Relying on the heavenly pattern, I strike into the large gaps, guide through the large openings, and follow what is inherently so.
  5. Better to forget one another in the rivers and lakes than to moisten one another with foam when stranded.

All quotations by Zhuangzi

Same theme

More on freedom

  1. Extreme freedom seems to change into nothing but extreme slavery.
  2. Of things, some are in our power, and some are not.
  3. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  4. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  5. If you are distressed by anything external, it is not the thing itself that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.

Browse the freedom theme