The Tao Is the Storehouse of the Ten Thousand Things
Chapter 62 presents the Tao as a refuge available even to the undeserving, arguing that its value has nothing to do with the ceremonial wealth rulers usually prize.
Laozi describes the Tao as "the storehouse of the ten thousand things" — not a place it occupies but the depth from which everything, good and bad alike, is drawn and to which it can return. The chapter states plainly that the Tao is "the treasure of the good man" but also what the bad man is kept safe by, a striking claim that the Way does not exclude the unworthy the way social and moral hierarchies do. Laozi contrasts this with worldly investiture — installing an emperor, appointing the three ministers, presenting jade discs before teams of horses — and says none of these ceremonial gifts equals simply sitting still and offering the Tao instead. The chapter closes by asking why the ancients prized the Tao so highly, and answers that through it what is sought is found and the guilty are let off — access doesn't depend on already being deserving.
Tao is the storehouse of all things.
Tao Te Ching