The Sage Acts Without Striving
Describes the Taoist ideal of the sage as someone who accomplishes large results by consistently handling things while they are still small, rather than through visible exertion.
Chapter 2 sets up the sage's basic posture: acting through non-contrivance, teaching without relying on words, and — crucially — "accomplishing without claiming credit," since it's the refusal to hold onto results that lets the sage keep them at all. Chapter 63 fills in the method behind that posture: "deal with the difficult while it is still easy; deal with the large while it is still small," because every hard problem was once easy and every large thing was once small. The chapter's well-known corollary — that a journey of a thousand miles begins under one's feet — underscores that the sage's apparent effortlessness is really the compounded effect of attending to things early, before they demand force. This is why chapter 63 also claims the sage "never encounters difficulties" — not because life is easy, but because problems are handled before they become difficult in the first place.
Deal with the difficult while it is still easy.
Tao Te Ching