其安易持，其未兆易谋。其脆易泮，其微易散。
What is at rest is easy to hold.
What has not yet shown itself is easy to plan against.
What is brittle is easy to break.
What is small is easy to scatter.
为之于未有，治之于未乱。
Act before it exists. Order before it is disordered.
合抱之木，生于毫末；九层之台，起于累土；千里之行，始于足下。
A tree you cannot put your arms around grew from a sprout.
A nine-story tower rose from a basket of earth.
A journey of a thousand li began under your feet.
为者败之，执者失之。是以圣人无为故无败，无执故无失。
Whoever acts on it ruins it. Whoever grabs it loses it.
So the sage does not act, and does not ruin; does not grab, and does not lose.
民之从事，常于几成而败之。慎终如始，则无败事。
People fail, again and again, when they are nearly done.
Be as careful at the end as at the beginning, and you will not fail.
是以圣人欲不欲，不贵难得之货；学不学，复众人之所过，以辅万物之自然而不敢为。
So the sage wants not to want, and does not prize goods that are hard to get.
He learns not to learn, and returns to what most people have passed by.
He helps the ten thousand things be what they are — and does not dare to act on them.
Reading it
Two halves that look like a contradiction. The first half says act early, while things are small — that is intervention. The second half says do not act, do not grab — that is restraint. They do not contradict: act on the conditions, not on the thing. Water the sprout; do not pull it up to make it taller. The line about failing when nearly done is the most useful sentence in the book for anyone who starts things.
Take the thing you are closest to finishing and slow down on the last ten percent.