The middle of the chapter is introduced with a formula meaning that there are established sayings on this, and what follows is a run of short paradoxes in a fixed pattern: the bright way seems dark, the way forward seems to retreat, the level way seems rough, the highest power seems a valley, great whiteness seems soiled, ample power seems insufficient, the great square has no corners, the great vessel is finished late, the great note is barely audible, the great image has no shape.
The chapter is therefore explicit about being an anthology at this point. It is not composing these lines; it is citing them, and it says so. That is rare and useful, because it shows that a stock of such formulae was already in circulation and that the book draws on it rather than inventing the genre.
The sayings themselves divide into two kinds. The first group pairs a quality with its apparent contrary, and the operative word is seems, which keeps the appearance and the reality distinct. The second group, from the great square onward, does something different: it says that a quality carried to its extreme loses the feature that identifies it. A square large enough has no visible corners. A note deep enough passes below hearing.
That second pattern is a specific argument rather than a paradox, and it is the one that carries the most weight. It says that the marks by which we recognise a thing are marks of moderate instances of it, so the greatest instance will be unrecognisable, which is precisely why the poorest sort of hearer laughs.