Along somewhat similar lines again, here is an excerpt from Amartya Sen's first essay from his book 'The Argumentative Indian':

As it happens, even the world-conquering Alexander received some political lecturing as he roamed around north-west India in the fourth century BCE. For example, when Alexander asked a group of Jain philosophers why they were paying so little attention to the great conqueror, he got the following - broadly anti-imperial - reply (as reported by Arrian):

King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth's surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, traveling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others! . . . You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of the earth as will suffice to bury you.