Tao Te Ching

⚖The case for it

Eighty-one verses. Five thousand characters. The most translated book after the Bible. Laozi's paradoxes (the usefulness of emptiness, strength through yielding, knowing through unknowing) aren't riddles to solve but invitations to a different way of being. 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.' Start there and see if you can stop.

— the canon

✕The case against

Pick ten translations and you get ten different books; the classical Chinese is so compressed that every English version is a wager, and what you read is the translator's poetry as much as Laozi's. Vagueness makes it portable, and portable means corporate retreats now quote it. Chapter 3 advises rulers to keep the people's minds empty and their bellies full; sit with that one.

— the honest librarian