《道德经》第四章
道冲而用之，或不盈。渊兮，似万物之宗。（挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。）湛兮，似或存。吾不知谁之子，象帝之先。
《Tao-Te Ching》Chapter 4
The Way is like an empty vessel That yet may be drawn from Without ever needing to be filled. It is bottomless；the very progenitor of all things in the world. In it all sharpness is blunted，All tangles untied，All glare tempered，All dust smoothed. It is like a deep pool that never dries. Was it too the child of something else？We cannot tell. But as a substanceless image it existed before the Ancestor.
Dust is the Taoist symbol for the noise and fuss of everyday life. A hsiang，an image such as the mental images that float before us when we think. The Ancestor in question is almost certainly the Yellow Ancestor who separated Earth from Heaven and so destroyed the Primal Unity，for which he is frequently censured is Chuang Tzu.
【易解】
道是虚无的，但它的作用却似乎无穷无尽。它是那样的幽深莫测，像是一切存在的本源依归。它消磨了锋角，排解了纠纷，柔和了光芒，浑同于尘俗。它无形无迹呵，像是很不确定的存在。我不知道在它之上还能有什么更本源的存在，只觉得它存在于天帝之前。
道德经全文及译文