A Taoist wouldn’t advise a ruler to use force of arms for conquest; that tactic backfires.

Where the army marched grow thorns and thistles. After the war come the bad harvests. Good leaders prosper, that’s all, not presuming on victory. They prosper without boasting, or domineering, or arrogance, prosper because they can’t help it, prosper without violence.

Things flourish then perish. Not the Way. What’s not the Way soon ends.

Note UKLG: This first direct statement of Lao Tzu’s pacifism is connected in thought to the previous poem and leads directly to the next. The last verse is enigmatic: “Things flourish then perish” — How can this supremely natural sequence not be the Way? I offer my understanding of it in the note on the page with chapter 55, where nearly the same phrase occurs.