Mao Zedong

“The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.”

“The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.”

“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”

“Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”

“If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.”

“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.”

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

“In waking a tiger, use a long stick.”

“Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.”

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.”

“If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.”

“Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.”

“In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.”

“The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.”

“We shall heal our wounds, collect our dead and continue fighting.”

“Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts.”

“All reactionaries are paper tigers.”

“Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.”

“The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.”

“Let a hundred flowers bloom.”

“Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.”

“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”

“The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”

“Women hold up half the sky.”

“In time of difficulties, we must not lose sight of our achievements.”

“In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.”

“I voted for you during your last election.”

“To read too many books is harmful.”

“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”

“There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.”

“War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.”

“Swollen in head, weak in legs, sharp in tongue but empty in belly.”

“The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.”

“There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants.”

“Learn from the masses, and then teach them.”

“An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”

“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.”

“Enable every woman who can work to take her place on the labour front, under the principle of equal pay for equal work.”

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”

“I have witnessed the tremendous energy of the masses. On this foundation it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever.”

“Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.”

“Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.”

“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”

“People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.”

“Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.”

“Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.”

“The "Cabinet meeting" of the Chinese government is really quick in yielding. Even the fart of foreigners can be taken as "fragrance." The Cabinet meeting lifts the cotton export ban because foreigners want cotton; it orders "all provinces to stop collecting the cigarette tax" because foreigners want to import cigarettes. Let the 400 million compatriots again think it over: Isn't it correct to say that the Chinese government is the bookkeeper of foreigners?”

“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”

“Marxism comprises many principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to a single sentence: it is right to rebel.”

“Stalin made mistakes. He made mistakes towards us, for example, in 1927. He made mistakes towards the Yugoslavs too. One cannot advance without mistakes... It is necessary to make mistakes. The party cannot be educated without learning from mistakes. This has great significance.”

“There are a lot of things we can learn from the Soviet Union. Naturally, we should learn from its advanced and not its backward experience. The slogan we have advocated all along is to draw on the advanced Soviet experience. Who told you to pick up its backward experience? Some people are so undiscriminating that they say a Russian fart is fragrant. That too is subjectivism. The Russians themselves say it stinks. Therefore, we should be analytical.”

“Ours is a people's democratic dictatorship, led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance.”

“Criticisms from democratic personages can be of only two kinds, those that are wrong and those that are not. Criticisms that are not wrong can help remedy our shortcomings while wrong ones must be refuted. As for such types as Liang Shu-ming, Peng Yi-hu and Chang Nai-chi, if they want to fart, let them. That will be to our advantage, for everybody can judge whether the smell is good or foul, and through discussion the majority can be won over and these types isolated.”

“Strategically we should despise all our enemies, while tactically we should take them all seriously.”

“The chaos caused was on a grand scale and I take responsibility. Comrades, you must all analyse your own responsibility. If you have to ***, ***! If you have to fart, fart! You will feel much better for it.”

“Maybe you're afraid of sinking. Don't think about it. If you don't think about it, you won't sink. If you do, you will.”

“All the rest of the world uses the word "electricity." They've borrowed the word from English. But we Chinese have our own word for it!”

“My closest friend and brother – this world is lucky to have a great personality as Kim Il Sung. This causes my boundless happiness. The fate of the world revolution and the international communist movement are on your shoulders, Comrade Kim Il Sung. I wish you long life and good health.”

“Alone I stand in the autumn cold Who rules over man's destiny?”

“Wide, wide flow the nine streams through the land, Dark, dark threads the line from south to north. Blurred in the thick haze of the misty rain Tortoise and Snake hold the great river locked. The yellow crane is gone, who knows whither? Only this tower remains a haunt for visitors. I pledge my wine to the surging torrent, The tide of my heart swells with the waves.”

“All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed "how they happen to be (how they become) identical--under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another".”

“Opposition and struggle between ideas of different kinds constantly occur within the Party; this is a reflection within the Party of contradictions between classes and between the new and the old in society. If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party's life would come to an end.”

“Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned or foreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for private management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the main principle of the regulation of capital.”

“Only by waging such a people's war can we defeat the national enemy. The Kuomintang has failed precisely because of its desperate opposition to a people's war.”

“What then do we propose? We propose the establishment, after the thorough defeat of the Japanese aggressors, of a state system which we call New Democracy, namely, a united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the people, under the leadership of the working class.”

“In accordance with Dr. Sun's principles and the experience of the Chinese revolution, China's national economy at the present stage should be composed of the state sector, the private sector and the co-operative sector. But the state here must certainly not be one "privately owned by the few", but a new-democratic state "shared by all the common people" under the leadership of the proletariat.”

“Throughout history new and correct ideas have often failed at the outset to win recognition from the majority of people and have to develop by twists and turns in struggle. Often correct and good things have first been regarded not as fragrant flowers but poisonous weeds.”

“The masses, the army, and the cadres are the three pillars on which we rely.”

“There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.”

“If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.”