Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)
“Worthy men, worthy men, people say, but if one does not have worth within himself, how can he make use of the worth of others? It is well said that safety and peril hinge upon the issuing of orders, and survival and defeat upon the men one puts in office. How true that is!”
- Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji 50) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).
