One of the most influential books in Chinese literature, the Tao Te Ching, which literally means "The Classic of the Way and Its Power or Virtue," remains one of the most-frequently translated and widely-read books in the world. Believed to have been written by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu in the sixth century B.C.E., this small book consists of eighty-one chapters. It is a fundamental text in philosophical and religious Taoism, reminding its reader that a virtuous life is a life lived in harmony with the basic force of nature-the Tao. This book is a republication of the 1891 printing by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, England.