Chapter 17

In the earliest times, people barely knew their rulers existed. In the next age, they loved and praised them. In the next, they feared them. In the next, they despised them. When the rulers lacked faith in the Tao, the people lost faith in the rulers.

How cautious those earliest rulers seemed, how carefully they weighed their words! Their work was completed and their projects succeeded, yet the people all said, “We did this ourselves, naturally.”