Chapter 70

吾言甚易知，甚易行。
天下莫能知，莫能行。
言有宗，事有君。
夫唯無知，是以不我知。
知我者希，則我者貴。
是以聖人被褐而懷玉。

My words are very simple to understand and very simple to practice.
Yet no one in the world can understand them, no one can practice them.
Words have an ancestor; deeds have a lord.
Precisely because people do not understand this, they do not understand me.
Those who understand me are few; those who take me as their model are precious.
That is why the sage wears coarse cloth and carries jade inside it.