Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Politics, Politicians, War, One liners
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: War, Weapon
Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Class
So long as a person who has made mistakes… honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go and lash at him.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Mistakes
War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Peace
Our attitude towards ourselves should be “to be satiable in learning” and towards others “to be tireless in teaching.”
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Education
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.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Knowledge
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.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Fanaticism
An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Navy, The Military, Enemy, Army
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.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Perception
The cadres of our Party and state are ordinary workers and not overlords sitting on the backs of the people.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Government
Imperialism is a paper tiger.
—Mao Zedong
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.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Culture
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution
There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Capitalism
Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Socialism, Communism
Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Power
Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.
—Mao Zedong
I have witnessed the tremendous energy of the masses. On this foundation it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever.
—Mao Zedong
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: People
All reactionaries are paper tigers.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Conservatives
The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Simplicity
In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Exercise
To read too many books is harmful.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Books, Reading
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.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Art, Artists, Arts
All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.
—Mao Zedong
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
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Pregnancy
The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Enemy
Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Equality
In time of difficulties, we must not lose sight of our achievements.
—Mao Zedong
Topics: Difficulty, Achievements, Achieving
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