Laozi
其政悶悶，其民淳淳； 其政察察，其民缺缺。 禍兮福之所倚，福兮禍之所伏。 孰知其極？其無正。 正復為奇，善復為妖。 人之迷，其日固久。 是以聖人方而不割，廉而不劌， 直而不肆，光而不燿。
James Legge
The government that seems the most unwise, Oft goodness to the people best supplies; That which is meddling, touching everything, Will work but ill, and disappointment bring. Misery!—happiness is to be found by its side! Happiness!—misery lurks beneath it! Who knows what either will come to in the end?
Shall we then dispense with correction? The (method of) correction shall by a turn become distortion, and the good in it shall by a turn become evil. The delusion of the people (on this point) has indeed subsisted for a long time.
Therefore the sage is (like) a square which cuts no one (with its angles); (like) a corner which injures no one (with its sharpness). He is straightforward, but allows himself no license; he is bright, but does not dazzle.
Victor H. Mair
When government is anarchic, the people are honest; When government is meddlesome, the state is lacking. Disaster is that whereon good fortune depends, Good fortune is that wherein disaster lurks. Who knows their limits? When there is no uprightness, correct reverts to crafty, good reverts to gruesome. The delusion of mankind, How long have been its days! For this reason, be Square but not cutting, Angular but not prickly, Straight but not arrogant, Bright but not dazzling.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
When the government is not in evidence [^1] the people are honest and loyal.
When the government is meddlesome the people are in want.
Misery!—Happiness lies by its side! [^2] Happiness!—Misery lurks beneath. He who understands the end has progressed beyond limitations.
The regular becomes the irregular; the good becomes unpropitious. This has bewildered men from time immemorial!
Hence the Holy Man is a square which has not been cut, and whose corners have not been planed; [^3] he is straightforward without being reckless, and bright without being dazzling.
The chapter proceeds from the outer to the inner, from that which is objective and manifest to that which is subjective and not so manifest. The evils of a meddlesome government are plain, they arise from too much emphasis being placed on externals rather than on principles. Less manifest to the “man on the street” is the trouble which arises from confusing happiness and misery, which are not separate but the reverse sides of the same shield. Jesus referred all his experiences, the success which attended his preaching, and the sorrow in which sin involved him, equally to the Father’s will. Hence the “Prince of this World” found nothing in him.
”Omnes! Omnes! Let others ignore what they may, I make the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also, I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is—And I say there is in fact no evil (Or if there is, I say it is just as important, to the land or to me as anything else).”
Thus the poet Walt Whitman, in his “Starting from Paumanok,” confirms, in his own fashion, the teaching of our pre-Christian Chinese mystic. Robert Browning also sings the same theme in one of his later poems
”Ask him—‘Suppose the Gardener of Man’s ground Plants for a purpose, side by side with good, Evil—(and that he does so—look around! What does the field show?)—were it understood That purposely the noxious plant was found Vexing the virtuous, poison close to food. If, at first stealing forth of life in stalk And leaflet promise, quick his spud should balk Evil from budding foliage, bearing fruit? Such timely treatment of the offending root Might strike the simple as wise husbandry, But swift sure extirpation would scarce suit Shrewder observers. Seed once sown thrives: why Frustrate its product, miss the quality Which sower binds himself to count upon? Had seed fulfilled the destined purpose, gone Unhindered up to harvest—what know I But proof were gained that every growth of good Sprang consequent on evil’s neighborhood?‘”
[^1] Like the sun behind the clouds, felt but not seen.
[^2] “Calamitas virtutis occasion.” (Calamity is virtue’s opportunity).—Seneca.
[^3] The Sage is four-square, perfect, not because he has become adjusted to the limitations of time and space, but because he has risen above these and is one with the Invisible.
”The peace which comes of surrendering all likes and dislikes is possible only when the Triangle becoming Quaternary is inscribed in the Circle, when the Perfect Man—unifying his consciousness by indrawing the purified personality—so expands as to step beyond the limitations of the causal body and embrace the Logos—when the Divine Man, now a perfect square, recognizes Himself as a mode of expression of the Divine Life, a form of the Divine Consciousness, an organ of Iswara and an image and reflection of the true Self.”—Studies in the Bhagavad Gita, by The Dreamer. (The Yoga of Discrimination) p. 110.
Ursula K. Le Guin
When the government’s dull and confused, the people are placid. When the government’s sharp and keen, the people are discontented. Alas! misery lies under happiness, and happiness sits on misery, alas! Who knows where it will end? Nothing is certain.
The normal changes into the monstrous, the fortunate into the unfortunate, and our bewilderment goes on and on.
And so the wise shape without cutting, square without sawing, true without forcing. They are the light that does not shine.
Note UKLG: In the first verse, the words “dull and confused” and “sharp and keen” are, as Waley points out, the words used in chapter 20 to describe the Taoist and the non-Taoists. In the last verse most translators say the Taoist is square but doesn’t cut, shines but doesn’t dazzle. Waley says that this misses the point. The point is that Taoists gain their ends without the use of means. That is indeed a light that does not shine — an idea that must be pondered and brooded over. A small dark light.