Water can carry a boat and overturn it, which is a famous saying of Xunzi, a thinker in the Warring States period.

This sentence first came from Xunzi's Xunzi. Jade ",the original text is: the monarch, the boat is also; Shu Ren, water also; The knife cuts bread and fingers.

The general idea of this sentence is: the king is a ship and the people are water. Water can make a ship float and sink.