Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
If anyone desires to take and remake the empire under his own reforming plans, he will never be successful. The empire is a spiritual thing that cannot be remade after one's own ideas and he who attempts
it will only make a failure. Even he who tries to hold it will lose it.
Under any system of holding or remaking the empire, the king must make use of different people and things; some of whom are honorable and precious and others are of less degree; some will be leaders and some will be only ornamental; some will be followers and some servants. Some people or things are strong and can be depended upon, others are fragile and will break or must be thrown away.
Therefore, the perfect Sage does not seek to take and remake the empire. He does not seek to enforce his own ideas upon it, but is content to give up extravagant comforts and indulgent egoism himself and thus to set the nation an example of returning to simplicity.