When Government Is Dull
The Text
其政闷闷，其民淳淳；其政察察，其民缺缺。祸兮，福之所倚；福兮，祸之所伏。孰知其极？其无正也。正复为奇，善复为妖。人之迷，其日固久。是以圣人方而不割，廉而不刿，直而不肆，光而不耀。
When government is dull, the people are happy. When government is sharp, the people are hollow. Disaster is what fortune leans on; fortune is where disaster hides. Who knows the turning point? There is no fixed right — rightness turns to wrong, goodness to spell. The people have been lost in this confusion a long time. So the wise: square without cutting, pointed without stabbing, straight without constraining, bright without glaring.
Reading it
The fortune-disaster pivot is the most quoted metaphysics in the book, but the operative content is the four adjectives: each is a strength that refuses to hurt. A squareness that does not cut, a brightness that does not blind — that is what institutional gentleness looks like when it still works.
祸福相倚是全书被引最多的形而上学，但真正的操作内容是那四个形容词：每一种力量都拒绝伤人。不割的方正、不耀的光亮——这就是制度性温和在仍有效时的样子。
Find one of your strengths that cuts people. Keep the strength; remove the edge.
找出你身上一种会割到人的长处。保留长处，去掉刃。