Chapter 37. Of governance
The Tao stays peaceful yet leaves nothing undone.
If a ruler or a king could hold on to it, all things would be made better.
![Drawing of the 18 tonne Laozi statue](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Laozi-posse.png)
If in addition to this improvement lust would be evoked I would defeat it with wordless simplicity
Wordless simplicity would remove the lust and peace would return once again.¹
Thus the world would be reborn.
- Mr. Ervast: ‘Godly wisdom is always simple – straight, honest – in its actions, but the worldly on the other and is complicated, cunning and “political”‘
Own translation from 1925 Finnish translation by Pekka Ervast (ISBN 951-8995-01-X) with kind permission of Ruusu-Ristin Kirjallisuusseura ry.