Another Ersatz Proverb?

This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating my cereal and drinking my coffee, when I heard, as I do many mornings, I brief radio piece, "Word for the Wise." I perked up when, at the very end of today's (August 25, 2008) program there was a line attributed to Lao Tzu.  It didn't sound quite right to me, however.  Here is the line:

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profundity. Kindness in giving creates love."

    It's a nice sentiment but it did not sound familiar to me, and the spirit of it didn't seem consistent with the general thrust of the Tao Te Ching.  I did a bit of searching.

    It is apparently fairly widely invoked - see this Google search page.   But it never seems to be attributed to a specific passage of the Tao Te Ching.   I searched the Legge translation and could not find it.  I looked through Hinton's translation and, as I suspected, found nothing that seemed remotely similar.  Now there is always the possibility that one of the many, many translations of the Tao Te Ching produces this passage, but I am now doubtful.  Perhaps it is something attributed to Lao Tzu in another source, perhaps a Buddhist corruption?  But it sure doesn't sound like the Tao Te Ching.

     So I am putting this out there and too see if anyone has a specific reference.  If not, we may have another ersatz proverb, along the lines of the old "may you live in interesting times" canard.

Comments

[Niles Gibbs]

Possibly a translation of chapter 67? or 8?

The structure/sentiment is similar to the middle of 67 in Yutang's translation.

But, I searched through the 85 English translations at (the sadly disappeared, though thankfully archived) compendium at http://home.pages.at/onkellotus.

No dice, unless there were transcription errors. My guess, it's from something totally unrelated.

[Sam]

Yes, Passage 67 seems a stretch to me. There just too much active creation of "Kindness" in the alleged Lao Tzu quote for it to be from the Tao Te Ching.
For comparison's sake, here is Ames and Hall's translation of that middle section of passage 67:

It is because of my compassion that I can be courageous;
It is because of my frugality that I can be generous;
It is because of my reluctance to try to become preeminent in the world that I am able to become chief among all things.

No mention of "words" there, nor "thinking" nor "giving."

[zhwj]

This commentator believes it's a naive translation of part of Chapter 8. I tend to agree. Assuming that the unknown translator parsed the statements as "言善，信；心善，渊；与善，仁" rather than "言，善信；心，善渊；与，善仁", the English isn't too much of a stretch.

[Sam]

zhwj,
Thanks for the link! This does seem plausible. But it is still quite a stretch. Notice how it takes the phrases out of order and ignores the reference to 居 and 政. Thus, it seems less "naive" to me and more purposive, to turn the text in a more comfortable direction, avoiding the amoral implications. Here's the full excerpt mentioned:

居善地，心善渊，与善仁，言善信，政善治

[zhwj]

Yeah, I imagine that the translator couldn't figure out any way to turn 地 into a profound-sounding quality, and just left it out instead.

[Luis Andrade]

Try Google Books The earliest reference in English in Western literature I could find comes from "peter's quotations: Ideas for Our Time" By Laurence J. Peter, published in 1977. Where Peter got that, I've no idea but am leaning towards your ersatz theory.

[Sam]

Luis,
Thanks. The collective effort here might settle the matter...