Tao Te Ching

The foundational text of Taoism, traditionally attributed to Laozi — eighty-one short chapters on the Tao, on governing by not-forcing, and on the strength of yielding.

Context: One of the most-translated books in the world, and the shortest of the classics on this list. Page count reflects the Stephen Mitchell translation; these texts vary widely by edition and translation.

Why it’s on the list: A short primer on non-coercive leadership that keeps surfacing in the strategy and founder-advice canon.

Where I saw it: Thread of Classics — a crowd-sourced Twitter thread pairing classic texts with the people recommending them. Put forward by Robert Haisfield (tweet).

Connections

• Thread of Classics — the reading list it came from