Contentment

Forty-four

Fame or your health: Which matters more?
Your health or your wealth: Which is more precious?
Gain or loss: In which is there harm?

If your desires are great, you're bound to be extravagant;
If you store much away, you're bound to lose a great deal.
Therefore, if you know contentment, you'll be nort disgraced.
If you know when to stop, you suffer no harm.
And in this way you can last a very long time.

Silence

Forty-five

Great accomplishment seems incomplete,
Yet its usefulness is never exhausted.
Great fullness seems to be empty,
Yet its usefulness is never used up.  
Great straightness seems to be twisted;
Great skill seems to be clumsy;
Great eloquence seems to stammer;
Great surplus seems to be lacking.
Activity overcomes cold.
Tranquility overcomes heat.
If you are quiet and tranquil
You can become the ruler of the world.

Desire

Forty-six

When the world has the Way,
Ambling horses are retired to fertilize fields.
When the world lacks the Way
War horses are bred outside the city.
Of sins - none is greater
than having things that one desire,
Of disasters - none is greater
than not knowing when one has enough.
Of defects - none brings greater sorrow
than desire to attain.

Therefore he who knows that enough
is enough is abiding contentment indeed.

Corrected with the Mawangtui texts