“Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, tjere would be more time avaliabble to us now than ever before in history, But, strangeley enough, we seem to have less time than even a few years ago… you’re too busy working to pay for machines to save your time so you won’t have to work so hard.”

Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

“Do you want to be really happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got. Do you want to be really miserable? You can begin by being discontented. As Lao-tse wrote, “A tree as big around as you can reach starts with a small seed; a thousand-mile journey starts with one step.” Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.“

Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

[Taoism’s] key principles are Natural Simplicity, Effortless Action, Spontaneity, and Compassion. The most easily noticed difference between Confucianism and Taoism is emotional, a different in feeling: Confucianism is stern, regimented, patriarchal, often severe; Taoism is happy, gentle, childlike, and serene- like its favorite symbol, that of flowing water.

Benjamin Hoff in The Te of Piglet

“Today, thanks to the Negative News Media, we are overinformed about problems we can do little or nothing about, Despite the great fanfare made about these problems, few of them have much of anything to do with our lives, When it comes to those that do- such as the matter of what the local Nuclear Power Plant is doing to our heath- the media are quite often silent. Strange. The Negative News Media rarely tell us of problems we can do anything about, and never tell us what we can do about them. That would give us an unfair advantage, we suppose.”

Benjamin Hoff in The Te of Piglet

“It’s intriguing, and rather Eerie sometimes, how history tend to repeat itself, The Us First, War Lord Confucianist criticized by lao-tse and other ancient Taoist seem to have put on new clothes and come back again to take charge. Reading the Tao Te Ching’s descriptions of the society of its time, one gets the strangest feeling that they were written the day before yesterday, So once again, Taoism- for all its great age- seems very up-to-the-minute. And once again, perhaps it has something to offer.”

Benjamin Hoff in The Te of Piglet

“At present, billions of American tax dollars are being spent each year on preparations for war, weapons of war, industries of war- running the nation into unpayable debt while across the coutry untaxed gang lords cruise about in limosines, drug pushers and psychopaths prey on neglected children, homeless grandmothers push their wordly possessions before them through the streets in shopping carts, and citizens of all ages contact Pistol Fever, shooting themselves and each other with handguns at the rate of sixty-four deaths per day- killing more Americans in two-and-one-half years than did the sixteen-year Vietnam War (and wounding approximately one hundred thousand others yearly).”

Benjamin Hoff in The Te of Piglet

“Here we will briefly describe two secrets of that magic- two principles of Taoist transformation that may prove Useful in the coming years, The first is to Turn the Negative into Positive, The second is Attract Positive with Positive. Unlike some other Taoist secrets, there is little danger of these principles falling into the Wrong Hands; because in the wrong hands, they won’t work. We might add that they work best for piglets.”

Benjamin Hoff in The Te of Piglet

Let’s find a Way

Today

That can take us to tomorrow-

Follow that Way,

A Way like flowing water.

Let’s leave

Behind

The things that do not matter,

And turn

Our lives

To a more important chapter.

Let’s take the time,

Let’s try to find

What real life has to offer.

And maybe then

We’ll find again

What we had long forgotten.

Like a friend,

True ‘til the end,

It will help us onward.

The sun is high,

The road is wide,

And it starts where we are standing.

No one knows

How far it goes,

For the road is never-ending.

It goes

Away,

Beyond what we have thought of;

It flows

Away,

Away like flowing water.

Piglet’s final song in The Te of Piglet