Portrait of Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Founder of People's Republic of China

Modern influential 115 sayings

Sayings by Mao Zedong

The more you study, the more you know. The more you know, the more you are confused.

Undated — Attributed, often cited in discussions of learning and knowledge.
General Unverifiable

All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality, they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are really powerful.

1946 — Interview with Anna Louise Strong
General Unverifiable

We must not be like women with bound feet, who grumble about the length of the road, but keep on walking.

Undated — Attributed, often cited in discussions of perseverance.
General Unverifiable

The highest criterion of truth is revolutionary practice.

1937 — On Practice
General Unverifiable

Without destruction, there can be no construction.

Undated — Attributed, often cited in discussions of revolutionary change.
General Unverifiable

The world is ours, you are still young, and the world is yours. The world belongs to you. China's future belongs to you.

1957 — Speech to Chinese students in Moscow
General Unverifiable

We should concentrate our forces to strike at one point.

1936 — Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War
General Unverifiable

The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them.

1936 — Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War
War & Violence Unverifiable

We must learn to look at problems from all sides, seeing the reverse as well as the obverse side of things.

1957 — On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
General Unverifiable

Fight no battle you are not sure of winning.

Undated — Attributed, a common military maxim associated with Mao.
General Unverifiable

Let us be united, and we shall win.

Undated — Attributed, a common revolutionary slogan.
General Unverifiable

There are two principles for the Communist: one is to be ruthless to the enemy, the other is to be kind to comrades.

Undated — Attributed, often cited in analyses of party discipline.
Political Unverifiable

We should rid our ranks of all impotent thinking.

1937 — On Practice
General Unverifiable

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.

1937 — On Practice
General Unverifiable

All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

1937 — On Practice
General Unverifiable

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You will make mistakes. That's how you learn.

Undated — Attributed, often cited in discussions of learning and self-criticism.
General Unverifiable

The Red Army fears not the trials of the Long March, and a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers are nothing.

1935 — The Long March
War & Violence Unverifiable

The enemy will not perish of himself. Neither will the Chinese reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of U.S. imperialism in China step down from the stage of history of their own accord.

1949 — Speech at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
General Unverifiable

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.

1941 — Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys
General Unverifiable

The more books you read, the more ignorant you become.

Undated, likely 1960s — Attributed, often cited in criticisms of intellectualism during the Cultural Revolution.
General Unverifiable
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