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.

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

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

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

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

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.

In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.

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

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.

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

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

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