Laozi
古之善為道者，非以明民，將以愚之。 民之難治，以其智多。 故以智治國，國之賊；不以智治國，國之福。 知此兩者亦𥡴式。常知𥡴式，是謂玄德。 玄德深矣，遠矣，與物反矣，然後乃至大順。
James Legge
The ancients who showed their skill in practising the Tao did so, not to enlighten the people, but rather to make them simple and ignorant.
The difficulty in governing the people arises from their having much knowledge. He who (tries to) govern a state by his wisdom is a scourge to it; while he who does not (try to) do so is a blessing.
He who knows these two things finds in them also his model and rule. Ability to know this model and rule constitutes what we call the mysterious excellence (of a governor). Deep and far-reaching is such mysterious excellence, showing indeed its possessor as opposite to others, but leading them to a great conformity to him.
Victor H. Mair
The ancients who practiced the Way did not enlighten the people with it; They used it, rather, to stupefy them. The people are hard to rule because they have too much knowledge. Therefore, Ruling a state through knowledge is to rob the state; Ruling a state through ignorance brings integrity to the state. One who is always mindful of these two types grasps a paradigm; Mindfulness of this paradigm is called “mysterious integrity.” Deep and distant is this mysterious integrity! It runs counter to things until it reaches the great confluence.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
From the most ancient times those who have practised the Tao have depended on the simplicity of the people rather than on their adroitness.
When the people are difficult to control it is because they possess too much worldly wisdom.
Who governs by worldly wisdom is a robber in the land; who governs without it is a blessing to the state.
To know these two axioms is to become a model. To understand how to be a model is indeed the mystery of energy.
Verily, deep and far-reaching is this mystery of energy. It is the opposite of all that is visible, but it leads to universal concord.
The Christ-man seeks nothing for himself; the world-man ever cries “mine,” rather than “my neighbor.” The former is simple, the latter adroit. Wise indeed is that man who understands the “Mystery of Energy,” the power of action which is desireless. Action which is desireless divert; no portion of its force toward bringing fruit to its author, hence, in the language of Paul, it is the foolish things and the weak things which confound the wise and the mighty. (Vid. I. Cor. i, 27, 28.) Because men fail to comprehend this, their best efforts, like Nebuchadnezzar’s image, are part iron and part clay. No politician has yet risen to these sublime heights, no state has yet proven superior to the glamor of “worldly wisdom”; therefore, while seeking to cure the ills they know, they create fresh evils, the end of which they do not see. Who governs by worldly wisdom is a robber in the land.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Once upon a time those who ruled according to the Way didn’t use it to make people knowing but to keep them unknowing.
People get hard to manage when they know too much. Whoever rules by intellect is a curse upon the land. Whoever rules by ignorance is a blessing on it. To understand these things is to have a pattern and a model, and to understand the pattern and the model is mysterious power.
Mysterious power goes deep. It reaches far. It follows things back, clear back to the great oneness.
Note UKLG: Where shall we find a ruler wise enough to know what to teach and what to withhold? “Once upon a time,” maybe, in the days of myth and legend, as a pattern, a model, an ideal? The knowledge and the ignorance or unknowing Lao Tzu speaks of may or may not refer to what we think of as education. In the last stanza, by power he evidently does not mean political power at all, but something vastly different, a unity with the power of the Tao itself. This is a mystical statement about government — and in our minds those two realms are worlds apart. I cannot make the leap between them. I can only ponder it