Mao Zedong
All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.Collection: Powerful
The great man, Genghis Khan, only knew how to shoot eagles with an arrow. The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you.Collection: Real
Just because we have won victory, we must never relax our vigilance against the frenzied plots for revenge by the imperialists and their running dogs. Whoever relaxes vigilance will disarm himself politically and land himself in a passive position.Collection: Running
Some play the piano well and some badly and there is a great difference in the melodies they produce.Collection: Play
The enemy will not perish of himself. Neither will the Chinese reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of U.S. imperialism in China step down from the stage of history of their own accord.Collection: Struggle
In class society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of class.Collection: Thinking
In a suitable temperature, an egg becomes a chicken, and there are no chickens born of stones.Collection: Eggs
We should encourage comrades to take the interests of the whole into account. Every Party member, every branch of work, every statement and every action must proceed from the interests of the whole Party; it is absolutely impermissible to violate this principle.Collection: Party
At certain times in the revolutionary struggle, the difficulties outweigh the favorable conditions and so constitute the principal aspect of the contradiction and the favorable conditions constitute the secondary aspect. But through their efforts the revolutionaries can overcome the difficulties step by step and open up a favorable new situation, thus a difficult situation yields place to a favorable one.Collection: Struggle
This army is powerful because all its members have a conscious discipline; they have come together and they fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly.Collection: Powerful
Education in democracy must be carried on within the Party so that members can understand the meaning of democratic life, the meaning of the relationship between democracy and centralism, and the way in which democratic centralism should be put into practice. Only in this way can we really extend democracy within the Party and at the same time avoid ultra-democracy and the laissez-faire that destroys discipline.Collection: Party
The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements.Collection: Winning
Ours is a people's democratic dictatorship, led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance.Collection: Class
After the enemies with guns have been wiped out, there will still be enemies without guns; they are bound to struggle desperately against us, and we must never regard these enemies lightly. If we do nor now raise and understand the problem in this way, we shall commit the gravest mistakes.Collection: Mistake
All our officers and fighters must always bear in mind that we are the great People's Liberation Army, we are the troops led by the great Communist Party of China. Provided we constantly observe the directives of the Party, we are sure to win.Collection: Party
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.Collection: Beautiful
Napoleon was the best method. Dissolved all representative institutions and it decided who should rule the state with him.Collection: States
. . . dogma is less useful than cow dung. One can make whatever one likes out of it, even revisionism. . . .Collection: Cows
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (1) Mauve waters and green mountains are nothing when the great ancient doctor Hua To could not defeat a tiny worm. A thousand villages collapsed, were choked with weeds, men were lost arrows. Ghosts sang in the doorway of a few desolate houses. Yet now in a day we leap around the earth or explore a thousand Milky Ways. And if the cowherd who lives on a star asks about the god of plagues, tell him, happy or sad, the god is gone, washed away in the waters. July 1, 1958Collection: Life
The attitude of Communists towards any person who has made mistakes in his work should be one of persuasion in order to help him change and start afresh and not one of exclusion, unless he is incorrigible.Collection: Attitude
To win countrywide victory is only the first step in a long march of ten thousand li.... The Chinese revolution is great, but the road after the revolution will be longer, the work greater and more arduous. This must be made clear now in the Party. The comrades must be helped to remain modest, prudent and free from arrogance and rashness in their style of work. The comrades must be helped to preserve the style of plain living and hard struggle.Collection: Party
There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other.Collection: Military
In transforming backward agricultural China into an advanced industrialized country, we are confronted with arduous tasks and our experience is far from adequate. So we must be good at learning.Collection: Country
While swimming in the heavily polluted rivers of south China, despite the pleadings of his security guards and his physician, he would chide his companions if they began to panic in the water: 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.Collection: Swimming
Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world.Collection: Wall
Be pupils of the masses as well as their teachers.Collection: Teacher
The question is not whether or not there should be a cult of the individual, but rather whether or not the individual concerned represents the truth, if he does then he should be worshiped.Collection: Politics
We have an army for fighting as well as an army for labour. For fighting, we have the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies but even they do a dual job, warfare and production. With these two kinds of armies, and with a fighting army skilled in these two tasks and in mass work, we can overcome our difficulties and defeat Japanese imperialism.Collection: Jobs
Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment.Collection: Struggle
Wherever our comrades go they must build good relations with the masses, be concerned for them and help them overcome their difficulties. We must unite with the masses, the more of the masses we unite with, the betterCollection: Overcoming
History shows that wars are divided into two kinds-just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust.Collection: War
On all basic points our policies have proved correct from the very beginning.Collection: Policy
Without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years [the eighteen years since the founding of the Party] the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.Collection: Peace
Our attitude towards ourselves should be 'to be satiable in learning' and towards others 'to be tireless in teaching.Collection: Education
The Chinese people have stood up.Collection: People
The People's democratic dictatorship needs the leadership of the working class. For it is only the working class that is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly revolutionary. The entire history of revolution proves that without the leadership of the working class revolution fails and that with the leadership of the working class revolution triumphs.Collection: Class
We must thoroughly clear away all ideas among our cadres of winning easy victories through good luck, without hard and bitter struggle, without sweat and blood.Collection: Struggle
We stand for self-reliance. We hope for foreign aid but cannot be dependent on it; we depend on our own efforts, on the creative power of the whole army and the entire people.Collection: Struggle
If we did ten things, nine were bad and got disclosed by the newspapers, we will be over. Then I will go, to the countryside, lead the peasant and revolt. If the Liberation Army do not follow me, I will get the Red Army.Collection: Army
The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the people is by the democratic method, the method of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression.Collection: Issues
New things always have to experience difficulties and setbacks as they grow. It is sheer fantasy to imagine that the cause of socialism is all plain sailing and easy success, without difficulties and setbacks or the exertion of tremendous efforts.Collection: Struggle
When we look at thing, we must examine its essence and treat its appearance merely as an usher at the threshold, we must, once we cross the threshold, grasp the essence of the thing.Collection: Essence
We should never pretend to know what we don't know, we should not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below, and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lowest levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders.Collection: Teacher
An army of the people is invincible!Collection: Army
The arrow of Marxist-Leninism must be used to hit the target of the Chinese Revolution.Collection: Chinese Revolution
The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.Collection: Real
It is up to us to organize the people. As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you do not hit it, it will not fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.Collection: Struggle
As for people who are politically backward, Communists should not slight or despise them, but should befriend them, unite with them, convince them and encourage them to go forward.Collection: People