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Chinese text
执大象，天下往。
往而不害，安平太。
乐与饵，过客止。
道出言，淡无味，视不足见，听不足闻，用不可既。
Translation
The Sage keeps the great image (the Tao), and all the peoples of the empire come to him.
They come, and he does them no harm; he provides them with peace, calm, and tranquility.
Music and exquisite dishes detain the passing stranger.
But when the Tao comes out of our mouths, it is insipid and flavorless.
One looks at it and cannot see it; one listens to it and cannot hear it; one uses it and cannot exhaust it.
Notes
The word 执 means 'to keep, to preserve'. The great image is the Tao. The Sage preserves the Tao; he practices wu wei (non-action), and the whole empire comes to submit to him. Once the empire has submitted to him, the Sage in turn can provide it with great advantages, and make it enjoy peace, calm, and tranquility. According to 刘晔 , the words 安 , 平 and 太 express different degrees of tranquility; 平 is the superlative of 安 , and 太 the superlative of 平 . The French language does not have words that can render these different nuances.
苏辙 and 苏泽友 : If one plays music and serves exquisite dishes, this is enough to stop the passing traveler. But when the music stops and the exquisite dishes are consumed, the traveler departs hastily. This comparison shows that worldly pleasures are illusory and have only a brief duration.
This is not the case with the Tao. Although it cannot delight our ears or please our taste like music and exquisite dishes, once it is adopted and used, it can extend to the entire world and to the most distant posterity.
Music and dishes are something too meager to be compared with the Tao.
