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

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

To read too many books is harmful.
Mao Zedong

Women hold up half the sky.
Mao Zedong

Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.
Mao Zedong

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

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

All reactionaries are paper tigers.
Mao Zedong

Swollen in head, weak in legs, sharp in tongue but empty in belly.
Mao Zedong

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
Mao Zedong

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.
Mao Zedong

Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.
Mao Zedong

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

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.
Mao Zedong

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao Zedong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let a hundred flowers bloom.
Mao Zedong

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Zedong

I voted for you during your last election.
Mao Zedong

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.
Mao Zedong

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.
Mao Zedong

Learn from the masses, and then teach them.
Mao Zedong

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.
Mao Zedong

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

The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.
Mao Zedong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.
Mao Zedong