Tao Te Ching: The Art of Harmony

The Daode Jing (the Tao Te Ching, or the Laozi, translating as the Classic of Ways and Virtues) bewildered its audience from the moment it mysteriously emerged at the apex of classical Chinese thought in the third century BC. Laozi, its mythical author, was appropriated as a major voice in parts of the Zhunangzi, as a target of criticism for authoritarian Confucians and as an inspiration to despotic Legalists.