Who is Lao-Tse from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and what is their importance?

Lao-Tse is a Taoist mystic and author of the Tao Te Ching, a famous treatise on the nature of reality. The Narrator as Phaedrus inserted the word "Quality" into that composition in place of Tao and found that it fit perfectly and provided a complete resolution to his metaphysical dilemma(s).