谏逐客书

In 237 BC, after the canal engineer 郑国, sent by the state of Han, was exposed as a spy, the Qin court ordered every foreign-born official to leave. 李斯, himself from Chu, argued that Qin had grown strong by using talent from everywhere. The king, the future 秦始皇, withdrew the order, and Li Si rose to be his chancellor.

Its warning that talented men would turn back and bind their feet rather than enter Qin gave the idiom 裹足不前 'to hold back'. Its line on Mount Tai, which refuses no clod of earth and so grows great, is still quoted in praise of openness.