Chapter 75: Loss by Greediness
Tao Teh King (Laotzu's Tao and Wu Wei), trans. Dwight Goddard
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Starvation of a people comes when an official appropriates to himself too much of the taxes. The reason a people are difficult to govern is because the officials are too meddlesome; the people make light of death because they are so absorbed in life's interests. The one who is not absorbed in life is more moral than he who esteems life.
Laozi (attributed), Tao Teh King (Laotzu's Tao and Wu Wei), trans. Dwight Goddard (1919). Public domain.