吴千之为他的《道德经》新注新译写了一个 Introduction, 开场白是这样的：

With so many English versions of the Dao De Jing, why another?--Moss Roberts (2001),Laozi: Dao De Jing--the Book of the Way, P.2

The Daodejing has probably been transalted into the English language more often than any other piece of world literature. Why translate it again?--Roger Ames (2003),Dao De Jing:"Making this Life Significant"--A Philosophical Translation p. ix.

If eminent sinologists like Professors Ames and Roberts have to provide a "reasonable answer" to the same "reasonable question" for their translations, there is no excuse for this much belated attemto to be exempted from the same password test. I don't have a newly-discovered mamuscript to justify my new translation. Nor do I claim a fresh angle from a specific discipline. But the infinite profundity and consequently the infinite translatability of Laozi's immortal work always make it possilbe to bring the readers yet another step closer to what Laozi actually says and how he says it through still another translation aided by commentaries. That is why I call my book Thus Spoke Laozi, not that I am taking Laozi to be another Zarathustra or Nietzsche. Arguably what Laozi actually says is very much a matter of interpretation, but equipped with my line-by-line bilingual text and commentaries, the readers will be able to have the aha! moment to say, "Now I know what Laozi is saying."

注：以上引文如有误，肯定是我打字的错误，不是译本的。