Dao De Jing Chapter 46: Horses, Desire and Knowing Enough

Read both horse scenes before the sufficiency saying

This guide follows chapter 46 in the displayed received Chinese edition with commentary attributed to Wang Bi. The complete chapter words below exclude the displayed notes. Punctuation helps reading; it does not establish an original autograph.

天下有道，卻走馬以糞。天下無道，戎馬生於郊。禍莫大於不知足；咎莫大於欲得。故知足之足，常足矣。

The Stanford account of textual traditions explains why an edition belongs beside the conventional chapter number. Its discussion also cautions that received texts accompanying Wang Bi have undergone later changes. This guide reads one identified display and compares James Legge’s printed English; it does not collate every manuscript.

The opening contrasts the use of horses in two conditions

天下有道 and 天下無道 frame the two scenes. In the first, 卻走馬以糞 sends swift or running horses back to a fertilizing use. Wang Bi’s displayed note explains it through working and manuring fields. Legge makes “dung-carts” explicit in English. Our translation uses fields, following the note, without pretending the verse separately prints a cart description.

The second has 戎馬生於郊, war-horses born in the outer area. Our “outskirts” is an English choice for 郊; Legge gives “border lands.” The contrast puts military horses beside an agricultural use, rather than introducing a neutral list of horse breeds.

The chapter does not identify a particular battle, date or excavated stable. The scenes serve its contrast of a world with or without Dao. An account of a named historical campaign would need separate evidence; none is implied by this guide’s translation.

Wang Bi relates the contrast to sufficiency and seeking outside

Under the first scene, Wang Bi explains knowing sufficiency and knowing stopping, not seeking outward, and attending within. Under the second, he describes insatiable desire and outward seeking. Those notes connect the horse scenes with the desire and sufficiency warnings that follow.

The received verse itself then names 不知足, not knowing enough or sufficiency, and 欲得, wanting to obtain. Our working English retains those as different expressions. “Desire is bad” would be too broad: it drops the chapter’s specified warnings and the scenes that frame them.

The explanation should still keep note and verse separate. Wang Bi’s vocabulary of outward seeking is an interpretive route, not another sentence between the horses and the warnings. A careful reader can draw on it while allowing another translation to make a different emphasis visible.

Knowing enough is not the same phrase as knowing stopping

知足 is conventionally romanized zhi zu, knowing enough or sufficiency. 知止 is zhi zhi, knowing stopping. The selected chapter 46 verse uses 知足 in the ending, while the commentary uses both. The site’s existing chapter 32 stopping guide has 知止 within its naming and ordering sequence.

On a narrow screen, swipe this table sideways, or focus it and use the right-arrow key.

The passages may be compared, but swapping the two terms prevents the reader from seeing their different local questions. This new guide therefore does not duplicate the complete chapter 32 page under a more general restraint title.

知足之足 repeats 足. Our “the sufficiency of knowing enough” is awkward by design, allowing the repeated word to remain visible before interpreting it. The claim of enduring sufficiency belongs to the chapter’s argument; it is not a calculation of an individual reader’s resources.

Legge’s English contains an additional warning

Legge’s chapter 46 has three warnings: no guilt greater than sanctioning ambition, no calamity greater than discontent, and no fault greater than wishing to get. The received display used here has two: 禍莫大於不知足 and 咎莫大於欲得. Its verse does not print a separate first warning corresponding to Legge’s sanctioning-ambition sentence.

This is a checkable difference between two identified materials. It is not proof that Legge invented the extra thought or that every Chinese edition has only these two warnings. To explain the textual reason, obtain the actual edition or apparatus used by the translator. The current guide has not established that witness.

For comparison, write the two displayed Chinese warnings beside Legge’s three English statements and mark the unmatched one. A useful reading note says exactly what differs and where evidence is still needed. Silently paste the extra sentence into the Chinese quotation and that honesty is lost.

A complete note restores the political and agricultural context

Suppose a caption says only “Laozi tells me to want less.” A more precise note would identify chapter 46, its two horse scenes, 不知足 and 欲得, and the repeated 足 ending. A modern personal reflection can be added, but it should be stated as a reflection rather than replace the chapter’s political imagery.

If the note uses the chapter to discuss a current organization or public policy, provide contemporary evidence for those claims separately. The ancient horse contrast does not prove a modern cause of conflict or the outcome of a specific proposal. Its immediate value here is a locatable argument about Dao, desire and sufficiency.

Keep the named translation with the citation. When a reader encounters a third warning in another version, they can then compare materials instead of assuming the quotation was copied inaccurately. That makes the article useful for readers who want to read beyond a short contentment slogan.

Try three complete reading checks

These are original editorial exercises. Decide which words or source layer support the claim before opening each explanation.