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Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Outer Chapters -> Knowledge Rambling in the North -> 9

The forger of swords for the Minister of War
had reached the age of eighty,
and had not lost a hair's-breadth of his ability.
:「The Minister said to him, 'You are indeed skilful, Sir.
?」Have you any method that makes you so?'
The man said,
'Your servant has (always) kept to his work.
When I was twenty, I was fond of forging swords.
I looked at nothing else.
I paid no attention to anything but swords.
By my constant practice of it,
I came to be able to do the work without any thought of what I was doing. By length of time one acquires ability at any art;
and how much more one who is ever at work on it!
What is there which does not depend on this, and succeed by it?


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