Laozi
聖人無常心，以百姓心為心。 善者，吾善之；不善者，吾亦善之；德善。 信者，吾信之；不信者，吾亦信之；德信。 聖人在天下，歙歙為天下渾其心， 百姓皆注其耳目，聖人皆孩之。
James Legge
The sage has no invariable mind of his own; he makes the mind of the people his mind.
To those who are good (to me), I am good; and to those who are not good (to me), I am also good;—and thus (all) get to be good. To those who are sincere (with me), I am sincere; and to those who are not sincere (with me), I am also sincere;—and thus (all) get to be sincere.
The sage has in the world an appearance of indecision, and keeps his mind in a state of indifference to all. The people all keep their eyes and ears directed to him, and he deals with them all as his children.
Victor H. Mair
The sage never has a mind of his own; He considers the minds of the common people to be his mind. Treat well those who are good, Also treat well those who are not good; thus is goodness attained. Be sincere to those who are sincere, Also be sincere to those who are insincere; thus is sincerity attained. The sage is self-effacing in his dealings with all under heaven, and bemuddles his mind for the sake of all under heaven. The common people all rivet their eyes and ears upon him, And the sage makes them all chuckle like children.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
The Holy Man is not inflexible, he plans according to the needs of the people.
I would return good for good. I would also return good for evil. [^1] Thus goodness operates (or “thus all become good”).
I would return trust for trust. I would also return trust for suspicion. Thus trust operates (or “thus all become trustworthy”).
The Holy Man as he dwells in the world is very apprehensive concerning it, blending his heart with the whole. [^2] Most men plan for themselves. [^3] The Holy Man treats every one as a child. [^4]
The Sage, calm and passionless, without regrets, without desires, having risen above all that is separative, adapts himself to the needs of mankind as water to the shape of the vessel into which it is poured. Knowing that, as a Japanese proverb expresses it, pleasure is the seed of pain, pain is the seed of pleasure (raku wa ku no tane; ku wa raku no tane), he treats all men, the good and the bad, the sincere and the insincere, with equal benevolence. Alfred Sutro records of Maeterlinck that he regarded the humble, the foolish, the saint, the sinner, with the same love and almost the same admiration. “Nothing is contemptible in this world but scorn.” “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”
[^1] cf. of ch. 63. “The man who returns good for evil is as a tree which renders its shade and its fruit even to those who cast stones at it.”—Persian Proverb.
[^2] “In the world good and evil, trustworthiness and hypocrisy arise from too much emphasis being placed on the personality. In this way mutual recriminations and injuries arise, without any standard whereby they may be decided. The Sage, apprehensive concerning these, blends his heart with the whole, and treats all, the good and the bad, the trustworthy and the hypocrite alike.”—Su-cheh. Cp. “The Path of Discipleship,” by Annie Besant, p. 106.
[^3] Literally “direct their thoughts to their own ears and eyes.” My rendering is supported by such commentators as Wang-pi and Ho-shang-kung. The passage has been usually modeled according to the teachings of The Doctrine of The Mean, and made to say that all the people turned their eyes towards the Sage.
[^4] He makes no distinctions but treats all with equal impartiality. The same note was struck by the Hindu Mahabharata—“There is no distinction of castes; the whole world is created by God."
"The friend, or the enemy, is merely the ascription of the desire nature to certain patent facts, and varies with the attitude of the mind.”—Studies in The Bhagavad Gita, by The Dreamer (The Yoga of Discrimination), p. 79.
Ursula K. Le Guin
The wise have no mind of their own, finding it in the minds of ordinary people.
They’re good to good people and they’re good to bad people. Power is goodness. They trust people of good faith and they trust people of bad faith. Power is trust.
They mingle their life with the world, they mix their mind up with the world. Ordinary people look after them. Wise souls are children.
Note UKLG: The next to last line is usually read as saying that ordinary people watch and listen to wise people. But Lao Tzu has already told us that most of us wander on and off the Way and don’t know a sage from a sandpile. And surely the quiet Taoist is not a media pundit. Similarly, the last line is taken to mean that the wise treat ordinary people like children. This is patronizing, and makes hash out of the first verse. I read it to mean that the truly wise are looked after (or looked upon) like children because they’re trusting, unprejudiced, and don’t hold themselves above or apart from ordinary life.