“Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner”: did Laozi say it?
Not in the Dao De Jing
No: “Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner” is Stephen Mitchell's own line in his chapter 9; the Chinese there says that wealth and pride bring their own downfall.
Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
The nearest lines in the Dao De Jing
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富贵而骄，
Wealth and pride,
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自遗其咎。
lead to self-loss and bad fortune.
Where it comes from
The sentence is in Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching (1988), in chapter 9, but nothing in the Chinese of that chapter, or of any other, speaks of approval or of being a prisoner. Wikiquote lists it as misattributed: an interpretation of Mitchell's that is not in the original text or in other translations. Stefan Stenudd, who keeps a list of sayings wrongly credited to Laozi, found the variant “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner” first in James Frey's A Million Little Pieces (2003), which credits Mitchell's version.
What the Dao De Jing says instead
Mitchell's line stands where the Chinese has 富贵而骄, “rich, high-ranking and arrogant”, 自遗其咎, “one leaves oneself the blame”. Our translation: “Wealth and pride, lead to self-loss and bad fortune.” The chapter is about excess, not about other people's opinion: filling a vessel to the brim, sharpening a blade too far, halls full of treasure that no one can defend. It ends: “Accomplish and retire, the Way of heaven.”