Laozi
道常無為而無不為。 侯王若能守之，萬物將自化。 化而欲作，吾將鎮之以無名之樸。 無名之樸，夫亦將無欲。 不欲以靜，天下將自定。
James Legge
The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.
If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of themselves be transformed by them.
If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would express the desire by the nameless simplicity.
Simplicity without a name Is free from all external aim. With no desire, at rest and still, All things go right as of their will.
Victor H. Mair
The Way is eternally nameless. If feudal lords and kings preserve it, The myriad creatures will be transformed by themselves. After transformation, if they wish to rise up, I shall restrain them with the nameless unhewn log. By restraining them with the nameless unhewn log, They will not feel disgraced; Not feeling disgraced, They will be still, Whereupon heaven and earth will be made right by themselves.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
The Tao—eternally actionless and the cause of all action!
Were princes and monarchs able to acquiesce the myriad existences would by degrees spontaneously transform. Transforming and wishing to function I would immediately guide by the simplicity of the nameless.
The simplicity of the nameless is akin to desirableness.
Desireless and at rest the world would naturally become peaceful. [^1]
The charm of Calvary is the non-attachment and abstention from assertive action of its Central Figure. Free from care for the body or the things of the body, “desireless and at rest,” the Lord Jesus became the grain of wheat (Cf. John xii, 24) which is to-day transforming the world with its harvests.
[^1] Cf. chap. 32.
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Way never does anything, and everything gets done. If those in power could hold to the Way, the ten thousand things would look after themselves. If even so they tried to act, I’d quiet them with the nameless, the natural.
In the unnamed, in the unshapen, is not wanting. In not wanting is stillness. In stillness all under heaven rests.
Note UKLG: Here the themes of not doing and not wanting, the unnamed and the unshapen, recur together in one pure legato. It is wonderful how by negatives and privatives Lao Tzu gives a sense of serene, inexhaustible fullness of being.