Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)
“To incite troubles and leave them unsolved, to disband the armies only to call them up again, bringing sorrow and hardship to those near at hand and alarm to distant lands–this is no way to insure the continuance of the dynasty.”
- Quote from an essay attributed to Yan An in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji, 112) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).
