What is the Tao Te Ching?

As Wikipedia will kindly inform you, the Tao Te Ching is a text thought to be written around 600 BC and is essential to the Taoist and Buddhist belief systems. Lao Tzu is traditionally attributed as being the author. The text is closer to poetry than anything else which makes it hard to absorb quickly. One must search for the meaning in every statement to get the most out of it. I read it in one sitting but I'll have to reread it many times to fully appreciate it. There are so many good quotes that I'm just going to drop one in here every so often.

Knowing others is intelligence.

Knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength.

Mastering yourself is true power.

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (chap. 33, tr. S. Mitchell) No commentary necessary methinks. Simple, elegant, incontestable.