Laozi, whose surname was Li, given name Er, and courtesy name Dan, was born in the late Spring and Autumn period. He was an ancient thinker, philosopher, writer and historian. As the founder and main representative of the Taoist School, he was later honored as the ancestor of Taoism and called“ Lord Laozi”.
Laozi’s thought had a profound influence on the development of Chinese philosophy, and its core was simple dialectics. Laozi believed that everything in the world exists by comparison. Beauty and ugliness, good and evil, existence and nonexistence, difficulty and easiness, and longness and shortness are respectively interdependent. On the surface, the two opposite aspects are opposed to each other, but in fact, they are mutually inclusive and penetrating. Everything is inseparable from others, and nothing is immutable. When things develop to a certain extent, they will inevitably turn into the opposite. At the same time, the development and the transformation of things to the opposite are not realized overnight, but need to go through a process of constant accumulation in quantity.
Laozi’s achievements were mainly reflected in the book Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu, also known as Tao Te Ching, together with The Book of Changes and The Analects, are considered to be the three greatest ideological masterpieces that had the most profound impact on Chinese people. Tao Te Ching is concise, comprehensive and well- organized, and skillfully used metaphors and couplets to describe natural phenomena and social life. As early as the 18th century, there had been multiple versions of Tao Te Ching in some western countries. By the 1940s and 1950s, there had been more than 60 versions of Tao Te Ching in Europe. Laozi’s thought has become a valuable asset of the world’s historical and cultural heritage. Its influence not only includes philosophy, religion, politics, economy, aesthetics, ethics, psychology, pedagogy, rhetoric and other disciplines, but also involves medicine, health preservation, Qigong, military affairs, management, architecture, gardening and many other fields.