MAO ZEDONG QUOTES

Chinese Communist Party leader (1893-1976)

Mao Zedong quote

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

MAO ZEDONG

Mao's Selected Works


All political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

MAO ZEDONG

Problems of War and Strategy

Tags: power, guns


We communists are like seeds and the people are the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them.

MAO ZEDONG

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong

Tags: communism


Complacency is the enemy of study.

MAO ZEDONG

Selected Works

Tags: complacency


On all basic points our policies have proved correct from the very beginning.

MAO ZEDONG

interview with journalist Gunther Stein, 1944


Communists should set an example in being practical as well as far-sighted. For only by being practical can they fulfill the appointed tasks, and only far-sightedness can prevent them from losing their bearings in the march forward.

MAO ZEDONG

"The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War", Oct. 1938


We shall support whatever our enemies oppose and oppose whatever our enemies support.

MAO ZEDONG

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong

Tags: enemies


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.

MAO ZEDONG

attributed, The Time 100, Apr. 13, 1998


Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

MAO ZEDONG

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong


Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.

MAO ZEDONG

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong

Tags: victory


If one must fight one should confine oneself to conventional weapons.

MAO ZEDONG

interview, New Republic, Feb. 26, 1965


In literary and art criticism there are two criteria, the political and the artistic.

MAO ZEDONG

"Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art", May 1942

Tags: art


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

MAO ZEDONG

"On Coalition Government", Apr. 24, 1945

Tags: history


People who try to commit suicide -- don't attempt to save them!... China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.

MAO ZEDONG

attributed, Mao's Last Revolution

Tags: suicide


The young people are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking. This is especially so in the era of socialism.

MAO ZEDONG

introductory note, "A Youth Shock Brigade of the No. 9 Agricultural Producers' Co-operative in Hsinping Township, Chungshan County", The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside

Tags: youth


It is quite possible that China may reach the stages of socialism and communism considerably later than your countries in the West which are so much more highly developed economically.

MAO ZEDONG

interview with journalist Gunther Stein, 1944


First, it should be pointed out that the danger of ultrademocracy lies in the fact that it damages or even completely wrecks the Party organization and weakens or even completely undermines the Party's fighting capacity, rendering the Party incapable of fulfilling its fighting tasks and thereby causing the defeat of the revolution. Next, it should be pointed out that the source of ultra-democracy consists in the petty bourgeoisie's individualistic aversion to discipline. When this characteristic is brought into the Party, it develops into ultra-democratic ideas politically and organizationally. These ideas are utterly incompatible with the fighting tasks of the proletariat.

MAO ZEDONG

"On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party", Dec. 1929


Our country and all the other socialist countries want peace; so do the peoples of all the countries of the world. The only ones who crave war and do not want peace are certain monopoly capitalist groups in a handful of imperialist countries that depend on aggression for their profits.

MAO ZEDONG

"Opening Address at the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China", Sep. 15, 1956


We are firmly convinced that private capital, Chinese as well as foreign, must be given liberal opportunities for broad development in postwar China; for China needs industrial growth.

MAO ZEDONG

interview with journalist Gunther Stein, 1944


All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.

MAO ZEDONG

speech commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jun. 30, 1949