Top 289 Quotes & Sayings by Mao Zedong

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Last updated on November 22, 2024.

Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

Chinese - Leader | December 26, 1893 - September 9, 1976

Source: Wikipedia

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

Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

I voted for you during your last election.

Mao Zedong

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

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

To read too many books is harmful.

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

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

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

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

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

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.

Mao Zedong

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

Mao Zedong

Let a hundred flowers bloom.

Mao Zedong

Women hold up half the sky.

Mao Zedong

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

Learn from the masses, and then teach them.

Mao Zedong

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

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

All reactionaries are paper tigers.

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.

Mao Zedong

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

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

When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue.

Mao Zedong

What is work? Work is struggle. There are difficulties and problems in those places for us to overcome and solve. We go there to work and struggle to overcome these difficulties. A good comrade is one who is more eager to go where the difficulties are greater.

Mao Zedong

Deaths have benefits. They can fertilise the ground.

Mao Zedong

We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports

Mao Zedong

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

There may be thousands of principles of Marxism, but in the final analysis they can be summed up in one sentence: Rebellion is justified.

Mao Zedong

Power comes from the muzzle of a gun, those that have the guns have the power, those that have the power dictate what type of government their shall be.

Mao Zedong

The weeds of socialism are better than the crops of capitalism.

Mao Zedong

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

People say that poverty is bad, but in fact poverty is good. The poorer people are, the more revolutionary they are. It is dreadful to imagine a time when everyone will be rich... From a surplus of calories people will have two heads and four legs.

Mao Zedong

When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.

Mao Zedong

Morality begins at the point of a gun.

Mao Zedong

People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs!

Mao Zedong

We are indebted to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin for giving us a weapon. The weapon is not a machine-gun, but Marxism-Leninism.

Mao Zedong

Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.

Mao Zedong

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

Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most, people die... Half the population wiped out - this happened quite a few times in Chinese history... It's best if half the population is left, next best one-third.

Mao Zedong

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

Mao Zedong

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

Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well.

Mao Zedong

Firstly, do not fear hardship, and secondly, do not fear death.

Mao Zedong