Mao Tse-Tung Quotes (63 Quotes)


    A revolution is not a dinner party ... or doing embroidery it cannot be so refined, so leisurely.

    The people are like water and the army is like fish.


    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.

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


    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 world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigour and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you.

    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.

    Capture of Nanking Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over Chung the bell mountain as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy. We must not stoop to fame like the overlord Hsiang Yu. If heaven has feeling it will grow old and watch our seas turn into mulberry fields. April 1949

    Swlmmlng After swallowing some water at Changsha I taste a Wuchang fish in the surf and swim across the Yangtze River that winds ten thousand li. I see the entire Chu sky. Wind batters me, waves hit me I don't care. Better than walking lazily in the patio. Today I have a lot of time. Here on the river the Master said 'Dyingdying into the pastis like a river flowing.'

    Our attitude towards ourselves should be ''to be satiable in learning'' and towards others ''to be tireless in teaching.''

    The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.

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

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

    Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2) Thousands of willow branches in a spring wind. Six hundred million of China, land of the gods, and exemplary like the emperors Shun and Yao. A scarlet rain of peach blossoms turned into waves and emerald mountains into bridges. Summits touch the sky. We dig with silver shovels and iron arms shake the earth and the Three Rivers. God of plagues, where are you going We burn paper boats and bright candles to light his way to heaven. July I, 1958

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

    Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

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


    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,

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

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

    The Gods on the death of his wife Yang Kai-hui I lost my proud poplar and you your willow As poplar and willow they soar straight up into the ninth heaven and ask the prisoner of the moon, Wu Kang' what is there. He offers them wine from the cassia tree. The lonely lady on the moon, Chang 0, spreads her vast sleeves and dances for these good souls in the unending sky. Down on earth a sudden report of the tiger's defeat. Tears fly down from a great upturned bowl of rain. May 11, 1957

    Return to Shaoshan I regret the passing, the dying, of the vague dream my native orchards thirty-two years ago. Yet red banners roused the serfs, who seized three-pronged lances when the warlords raised whips in their black hands. We were brave and sacrifice was easy and we asked the sun, the moon, to alter the sky. Now I see a thousand waves of beans and rice and am happy. In the evening haze heroes are coming home. June 25, 1959

    Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.

    The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue..

    At the beginning of anything out of the ordinary, the mass of the people always dislike it.

    Loushan Pass A hard west wind, in the vast frozen air wild geese shriek to the morning moon, frozen morning moon. Horse hoofs shatter the air and the bugle sobs. The grim pass is like iron yet today we will cross the summit in one step, cross the summit. Before us greenblue mountains are like the sea, the dying sun like blood. February 1935

    People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

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

    Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.

    Learn from the masses, and then teach them.

    Peitaho Heavy rains fall on Yuyen, the northland kingdom of swallows. White pages of rain envelop the sky, and fishing boats off the Island of the Emperor Chin disappear on the ocean. Which way have they gone More than a thousand years ago the mighty emperor Tsao Tsao cracked his whip and drove his army against the Tartars. He left us a poem 'Let us move east to the Stone Mountains.' Today we still shiver in the autumn gale, in desolate winds, yet another man is in the world. Summer 1954

    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.


    Armament is an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor... Man, not material, forms the decisive factor.

    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. June 1956

    The Long March The Red Army is not afraid of hardship on the march, the long march. Ten thousand waters and a thousand mountains are nothing. The Five Sierras meander like small waves, the summits of Wumeng pour on the plain like balls of clay. Cliffs under clouds are warm and washed below by the River Gold Sand. Iron chains are cold, reaching over the Tatu River. The far snows of Minshan only make us happy and when the army pushes through, we all laugh. October 1935

    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.

    Snow The scene is the north lands. Thousands of li sealed in ice, en thousand li in blowing snow. From the Long Wall I gaze inside and beyond and see only vast tundra. Up and down the Yellow River the gurgling water is frozen. Mountains dance like silver snakes, hills gallop like wax bright elephants trying to climb over the sky. On days of sunlight the planet teases us in her white dress and rouge.


    Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

    ... dogma is less useful than cow dung. One can make whatever one likes out of it, even revisionism....


    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, 1958

    Three Songs 1 Mountain. I whip my quick horse and don't dismount and look back in wonder. The sky is three feet away. 2 Mountain. The sea collapses and the river boils. Innumerable horses race insanely into the peak of battle. 3 Mountain. Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted. The sky would fall but for the columns of mountains. 1934-35

    Poem for Liu Ya-tzu I cannot forget how in Canton we drank tea and in Chungking went over our poems when leaves were yellowing. Thirty-one years ago and now we come back at last to the ancient capital Peking. In this season of falling flowers I read your beautiful poems. Be careful not to be torn inside. Open your vision to the world. Don't say that waters of Kumming Lake are too shallow. We can watch fish better here than in the Fuchun River in the south. Summer 1949

    Kunlun Mountain Over the earth the greenblue monster Kunlun who has seen all spring color and passion of men. Three million dragons of white jade soar and freeze the whole sky with snow. When a summer sun heats the globe rivers flood and men turn into fish and turtles. Who can judge a thousand years of accomplishments or failures.

    Climbing Lushan The mountain looms firmly over the Great River. I climb four hundred bends to its green lush peak. With cool eyes I stare at the rim of mankind and the sea beyond. Hot wind blows rain in the sky and down to the river. Clouds over the nine tributaries and the floating yellow crane, where waves ripple toward the Three Wu. White mist flies up. Who knows where Tao, the ancient poet, has gone Is he farming in the Land of the Peach Blossoms July 1, 1959

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


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