Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage

Not Lao Tzu — a modern misattribution Lao Tzu trad. 6th century BC · legendary founder of Taoism, to whom the line is wrongly credited
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

This sentence is not in the ‘Tao Te Ching’ or any authentic Laozi text, and love in this romantic sense is simply not a theme he treated. Its earliest documented appearance is in the American novelist Dean Koontz’s 1988 thriller ‘Lightning’ ↗, where Koontz himself pinned it on Lao Tzu — giving no source. Who first composed the line remains unknown; it reads as a modern, greeting-card sentiment, not a 6th-century-BC Chinese aphorism.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” Not Lao Tzu — the line is absent from the Tao Te Ching. Its earliest documented appearance is Dean Koontz's 1988 novel "Lightning," which credited Lao Tzu without a source. Author unknown. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Lao Tzu. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of Lao Tzu — legendary Chinese sage, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching. Theme: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it actually comes from

Credited to
Lao Tzu (Laozi)
Actual origin
Unknown; earliest documented appearance below
Earliest source
Lightning (novel), Dean Koontz, 1988
In the Tao Te Ching?
No — absent from every chapter

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

A widely circulated swapped variant also exists — “To love someone deeply gives you strength; being loved by someone deeply gives you courage” — another sign of an unanchored, folk-transmitted line rather than a fixed translated text.

Wikiquote: Laozi — Misattributed section

How we verified this

Because the true author of the exact wording is unknown — its earliest documented appearance is merely a 1988 novel that itself credited Lao Tzu — no copyright status can be responsibly asserted for the sentence. The Tao Te Ching and its old translations are long in the public domain, but this line is not from that work.

Fact-check

How Lao Tzu got the credit

This is one of the internet’s most durable fake Lao Tzu lines — feel-good, quotable, and welded to a name that lends instant ancient authority.

Not in the Tao Te Ching absent from the text

The Taoism reference site taoistic.com states plainly that this is not a quote from the Tao Te Ching ↗, observing that romantic love is not a subject Lao Tzu explored and that the phrasing reads like modern pop lyric rather than ancient aphorism.

Dean Koontz, 1988 passed on the credit

The oldest book either Wikiquote ↗ or taoistic.com can find the line in is Koontz’s novel ‘Lightning’ (1988), where Koontz himself attributes it to Lao Tzu and cites no source — so even the earliest known appearance is a second-hand misattribution, not an original claim of authorship.

Quote databases & social media repeated as fact

Sites such as BrainyQuote, Goodreads and countless graphics reprint it under Lao Tzu; Goodreads at least flags it ‘widely-misattributed’ ↗, but most reprints do not.

The honest verdict: not Lao Tzu. The line is absent from the ‘Tao Te Ching’, its author is unknown, and its earliest documented appearance is a 1988 Dean Koontz novel that already credited Lao Tzu without a source ↗.

Context

Why the misattribution sticks

The sentiment is genuinely appealing — a neat chiasmus about how being loved and loving each grant a different gift. That symmetry is exactly what makes it memorable, and memorable lines drift toward famous names. Lao Tzu, remote and revered, is a magnet for any aphorism that sounds calm and wise.

But the ‘Tao Te Ching’ is a short, fully translated, endlessly searchable text, and this sentence is simply not in it. When even the earliest printed appearance — a 1988 thriller — is already handing the credit to Lao Tzu without a citation, the trail runs cold at a modern invention, not an ancient source.

A memorable line drifts toward a famous name — and Lao Tzu is one of the strongest magnets there is.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Love Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Laozi (Misattributed)en.wikiquote.org

Lists this line under Misattributed, tracing it to Koontz's 1988 Lightning.
Fake Lao Tzu Quotes: this linetaoistic.com

Taoism specialist's page explaining it is not from the Tao Te Ching and its Koontz trace.
Goodreads quote pagegoodreads.com

Popular reprint under Lao Tzu, tagged widely-misattributed.
Tao Te Ching (full text)gutenberg.org

Public-domain full text you can search to confirm the line is absent.
BrainyQuote entrybrainyquote.com

Example of the uncredited reprint under Lao Tzu's name.

Credited author

About Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu

trad. 6th century BC · legendary Chinese sage, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu (Laozi) is the semi-legendary Chinese philosopher traditionally regarded as the founder of Taoism and author of the Tao Te Ching, a foundational text of some 81 short chapters. Its themes are the Tao (“the Way”), wu wei (effortless action), humility, and harmony with nature — not romantic love, which makes sentimental “love” lines like this one especially easy to spot as later inventions. Modern scholars doubt he was a single historical individual at all.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Citation

Earliest documented in Dean Koontz, ‘Lightning’ (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1988), where the line is credited to Lao Tzu without a source; not present in the ‘Tao Te Ching.’ See also Wikiquote, “Laozi — Misattributed.”

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/being-deeply-loved-by-someone-gives-you-strength-while

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