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Liezi

Daoist
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Liezi is half legend, a sage said to ride the wind for days at a time, and half a book, a collection of Daoist tales and reflections assembled in his name. Its stories turn on emptiness, spontaneity, and the folly of clinging, including the famous fable of the man of Qi who could not stop worrying that the sky might fall. Where Laozi is gnomic and Zhuangzi is wild, the Liezi is quieter and stranger, dwelling on dreams, illusion, and the suspicion that waking and sleeping may not differ as much as we assume.

c. 450 BCE·Zheng

Born in Zheng

By tradition a Daoist master of the small state of Zheng, half historical and half legend.

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