Laozi — "The more laws and ordinances are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there…"
The more laws and ordinances are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be.
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More from Laozi
"Therefore the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions without the use of speech."
"The sage wears coarse clothes and carries jewels in his bosom."
"No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things... and at last become one with heaven and earth."
"The sage is always without ambition."
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About Laozi (c. 6th century BCE (semi-legendary))
Reputed founder of Taoism and author of the Tao Te Ching, whose wu wei (effortless action) shaped East Asian philosophy. Closely associated with Zhuangzi (later Taoist who extended Laozi's framework). For an intellectual contrast, see Confucius, near-contemporary Chinese sage of social ritual and duty — Confucius systematized social order through ritual and hierarchy; Laozi argued that all such systems were the disease, not the cure — the two founding poles of Chinese moral philosophy.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Excessive rules create the very disorder they aim to prevent. When a society multiplies laws, prohibitions, and regulations, it defines more behaviors as criminal, criminalizes ordinary activity, and breeds resentment toward authority. People lose the ability to act from natural ethics because they are either following rules mechanically or evading them. The result is more lawbreakers, not fewer, and a population that views the legal system as an obstacle rather than a shared moral order.
Relevance to Laozi
Laozi, traditionally a record-keeper in the Zhou royal archives, witnessed firsthand how bureaucratic elaboration failed to stabilize a decaying dynasty. His Taoism centers on wu wei, effortless non-interference, and ziran, natural spontaneity. He taught that rulers should govern by restraint, trusting people to find harmony without coercion. This saying distills that conviction: heavy-handed administration corrupts what it touches, whereas a quiet sovereign who imposes little lets order emerge on its own.
The era
Laozi lived during the late Zhou period, as the Spring and Autumn era gave way to the Warring States, roughly the sixth through fourth centuries BCE. Rival states were expanding legal codes, standing armies, taxation, and Legalist-style punishments to control populations and mobilize for war. Confucian ritualists competed with Legalist administrators over how to restore order. Against this backdrop of mounting statecraft and constant warfare, Laozi's warning that more laws breed more criminals was a pointed critique of the era's dominant political instincts.
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