Fun with verses.....Part 3

Translations, where would we be without translations.  Never having been a literalist, it is of interest to read differing interpretations of the "same" verse.  As an example,  the following are all translations of  Verse 43 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.

The very softest thing of all
     can ride like a galloping horse
          through the hardest of things.

Like water, like water penetrating rock,
And so the invisible enters in.

That is why I know it is wise
     to act by doing nothing.
And how few, how very few understand this!

People teach in the world
what I know to be true:

if you live violently
     that is how you will die.

-As translated by Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer, and Jay Ramsey
------------------------------------------------------------------

The weakest thing in the world
excels the strongest thing in the world
what doesn't exist finds room where there is none
thus we know dong nothing succeeds
teaching without words
succeeding without effort
few in the world can equal this.

-As translated by Red Pine
-----------------------------------------------------

Noting under heaven is softer or weaker than water,
      and yet nothing is better
           for attacking what is hard and strong,
               because of its immutability.

The defeat of the hard by the soft,
The defeat of the strong by the weak -
     this is known to all under heaven,
          yet no one is able to practice it.

Therefore, in the words of the sage, it is said:
     "He who bears abuse directed against the state
           is called 'lord of the altars for the gods of soil and grain';
      He who bears the misfortunes of the state
           is called the 'king of all under heaven' "

True words seem contradictory.

-As translated by Victor H. Mair
----------------------------------------------------

                 The softest of all things
          overrides the hardest of all thing.
That without substance enters where there is no space.
         Hence I know the value of nonaction.

                Teaching without words,
             performing without actions -
           few in the world can grasp it - 
              that is the master's way.
               Rare indeed are those
      who obtain the bounty of this world.

-As channeled by Wayne Dyer