Dao De Jing 18

Dao De Jing 18

When the Great Way was abandoned, humaneness & morality became abundant;

Wit & cleverness emerged, & hypocrisy abounded;

When harmony no longer held through the six close kinships*, filial sons grew abundant;

When the nation was benighted with disorder, loyal ministers grew plentiful.

Laozi, 道德經

Translation by John Hayes

The translation is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. 

Unlike with my original poetry & poetry translations, I don’t asset a copyright claim on my translation of the Dao De Jing. It may be freely used under the terms of the Creative Commons license.

Note:

* 六親 [liù qīn]

six close relatives, namely: father 父[fu4], mother 母[mu3], older brothers 兄[xiong1], younger brothers 弟[di4], wife 妻[qi1], male children 子[zi3]

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

“Bagua diagram by Zhao Huiqian ("River Chart spontaneously [generated] by Heaven and Earth" 圖河.自地天). This image may in fact be a reproduction of the diagram by Hu Wei in his Yitu mingbian (‘Clarification of the diagrams in the book of changes’), dated 1706.” circa 1370; 1706. Public domain.