Lao Tzu (c. 6th-5th century BCE)
“The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it. Whoever does anything to it will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it will lose it.”
- From Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching (Book One, XXIX), translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963).
