Full Idea
Your desire to extend your territory by war, in order to bring peace, is like looking for fish by climbing a tree.
Gist of Idea
Seeking peace through war is like looking for fish up a tree
Source
Mengzi (Mencius) (The Mengzi (Mencius) [c.332 BCE], 1.A.7)
Book Reference
Mencius: 'Mencius', ed/tr. Lau,D.C. [Penguin 1970], p.57
A Reaction
Mencius had a flair for analogies. Just occasionally I suppose he might be wrong on this point, but I would think that experiments in the laboratory of history have shown that he is right in nearly all cases.