Mao Tse-tung Quotes & Sayings

Published in this month's Harper's, from a conversation held in Beijing in February 1973:
Chairman Mao Zedong: Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million.
U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger: The chairman is improving his offer.
Mao: We can let them flood your country with disaster and therefore impair your interests. In our country we have too many women, and they have a way of doing things. They give birth to children, and our children are too many. — Mao Tse-tung

This protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat. — Mao Tse-tung

Under the white population of the United States of America only the reactionary classes oppres the black population. Under no circumstance can they represent the workers, farmers and revolutionary intellectuals and other enlighted people who form the majority of the white population. — Mao Tse-tung

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 Tse-tung

The struggle of the Black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of al the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals of all countries and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the Black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism, and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off. — Mao Tse-tung

Politics is war without blood, while war is politics with blood. — Mao Tse-tung

Historical experience is written in iron and blood. — Mao Tse-tung

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 Tse-tung

When you point a finger at the moon to indicate the moon, instead of looking at the moon,the stupid ones look at your finger. — Mao Tse-tung

The great man, Genghis Khan, only knew how to shoot eagles with an arrow. The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you. — Mao Tse-tung

I am a lone monk walking the world with a leaky umbrella. — Mao Tse-tung

Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent. — Mao Tse-tung

Firstly, do not fear hardship, and secondly, do not fear death. — Mao Tse-tung

If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States. — Mao Tse-tung

Mao recalled: "Very many members of our family have given their lives, killed by the Kuomintang and the American imperialists. You grew up eating honey, and thus far you have never known suffering. In the future, if you do not become a rightist, but rather a centrist, I shall be satisfied. You have never suffered
how can you be a leftist?"
— Mao Tse-tung

The evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the Black people. — Mao Tse-tung

It's always darkest before it becomes totally black. — Mao Tse-tung

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 Tse-tung

You can't be a revolutionary if you don't eat chilies. — Mao Tse-tung

Political power grows out of the barrel of the gun ... — Mao Tse-tung

Dont give a child a fish but show him how to fish — Mao Tse-tung

Make criticism in good time; don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event. — Mao Tse-tung