There is a being, wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it does not change. It moves around and around, but does not on this account suffer. All life comes from it. It wraps everything with its love as in a garment, and yet it claims no honor, it does not demand to be Lord. I do not know its name, and so I call it Tao, and I rejoice in its power.
~Tao Te Ching 25, quoted in Huston Smith's The World's Religions