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Piglet
In the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Rabbit is a sociable, energetic, obsessive, and bossy animal who is always trying to organize and direct everyone else. Much like Owl, he tends to think that he’s smarter than his companions, but in reality, his cleverness makes him foolish. In fact, if Pooh’s defining characteristic is his simplicity, then Rabbit’s is his cleverness: he’s always hatching unnecessarily complex plans, and they tend to backfire. For example, when he tries to get out of the forest and go home, he keeps trying new routes and ending up exactly where he started. In a way, Rabbit is a classic Bisy Backson—he never solves any problems because he’s so busy running around and looking for complicated solutions that he never sees the simple solutions that are right in front of him. In one notable scene, he runs around to ask all the other characters if they’ve seen the Uncarved Block—because he hasn’t realized that it’s a concept, not a piece of wood. Hoff uses Rabbit to show why simplicity and instinct are better tools for living a wise, happy life than cleverness and analysis.
Rabbit Quotes in The Tao of Pooh
The The Tao of Pooh quotes below are all either spoken by Rabbit or refer to Rabbit. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Pooh Way
Quotes
It’s not the Clever Mind that’s responsible when things work out. It’s the mind that sees what’s in front of it, and follows the nature of things.
When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it.
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The Now of Pooh
Quotes
Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the Forest.
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Get the entire The Tao of Pooh LitChart as a printable PDF.
Rabbit Quotes in The Tao of Pooh
The The Tao of Pooh quotes below are all either spoken by Rabbit or refer to Rabbit. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Pooh Way
Quotes
It’s not the Clever Mind that’s responsible when things work out. It’s the mind that sees what’s in front of it, and follows the nature of things.
When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it.
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Explanation and Analysis:
The Now of Pooh
Quotes
Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the Forest.
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Related Themes:
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