德 De : most often translated as “virtue”, “integrity”, or “(inner) power”, De is described in chapter 49 as “goodness” or “virtue” and “honesty” or “trust”; De might be infused into things when they are created by/from Dao, or something that develops when Dao is fully expressed through a person; De seems to be both the quality of being virtuous and the power that comes from being virtuous, so it might best be thought of as “the power of one’s virtue” or “the power from one’s integrity”, but it is also left untranslated so that readers may “fill in the blank” for themselves as they read
天 “heaven” : a complex concept, this symbol seems to have connotations of the sky, nature (including people and societies), that which controls our destinies, as well as possibly that of a celestial god-like spirit (and/or perhaps ancestral spirits)
天 地 “heaven and earth” : everything, the universe, all that is
天 下 “the world” : literally “heaven under”, it is perhaps better thought of as “all things under heaven”; it is left as “the world” because the English grammar sometimes gets awkward using the more accurate phrase; some translate it as “the empire”, which gives the entire document a much more imperialistic and militaristic slant
萬 物 “ten thousand creatures” : “ten thousand” as used here does not refer to a specific number, but means “innumerable” or “myriad”; together the symbols are perhaps better thought of as “all creatures and things”
聖 人 “sage” : literally “holy man”; in the DDJ, a sage is anyone who fully embodies and expresses Dao and De; as the ruling class would have been one of the few literate groups in ancient Chinese culture reading the DDJ, it seems possible that references to the way the sage does things could have also been a subtle way of saying “this is what a wise ruler would do” (especially in chapters like 5, 57, and 66, where the sage seems to be the ruler)
常 “ever-constant” : while this is often translated as “eternal”, it probably had more of a sense of “constant” or “permanent” in ancient China; unfortunately “constant” doesn’t imply the enduring nature of “permanent”, nor does “permanent” imply the unchanging quality of “constant”, so “ever-constant” is used here
心 “heart/mind” : usually translated as either “heart” or “mind” (the symbol means both), “heart/mind” seems to be the best translation
自 然 “naturally so” : this has the connotation of something that happens spontaneously, without being forced (“of itself”, “of its own accord”, “on its own”); Dao is “naturally so”, and although the DDJ does not say so explicitly, presumably the sage acts “naturally so” as well
樸 “uncarved block” (of wood) : just as a block of wood can be carved into virtually anything, in the DDJ the “uncarved block” represents the limitless undefined potential of our original nature