Balance

The book of Tao Te Ching is similar to The Analects since it teaches the reader about good morals. But, the ideas and the way it's written seem to be very different.

The ideas in The Analects were taught through dialogues between "the Master" and other characters. Tao Te Ching though, was sort of written in second person since it's like as if the author was directly talking to the reader through the text. Confucius thought that the most important things in life were family and elders. Tao Te Ching, on the other hand, seems to have some different kind of thinking. Most of Tao Te Ching seems to be talking about the existence and the importance of balance in everything. Here's an axiom that I found interesting:

"All can know good as good only because there is evil." (Tao 2:2)

Here, it's saying that good only exists because evil exists. So, technically good wouldn't exist if evil didn't exist either. This means that evil has to exist in this world in order for it to be balanced in some way. There should be as much evil as there is good. If there is no evil nor good, then the world wouldn't really exist, would it? I'm not sure, though. But, the text indirectly suggests that there should always be some kind of balance between good and evil, just like any other things in this world.