My favorite Mao quotes

1. "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend."

2. "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 socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in summary fashion."

3. "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."

4. "Dont give a child a fish but show him how to fish."

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

6. "Make criticism in good time; don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event."

7. "Concentrate a big force to strike at a small section of the enemy force" remains a principle of field operations in guerrilla warfare."

8. "Keep the enemy in the dark about where and when our forces will attack."

9. "Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge."

10. "In given conditions, a bad thing can lead to good results and a good thing to bad results."

11. "Marxist philosophy holds that the law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe. This law operates universally, whether in the natural world, in human society, or in man's thinking. Between the opposites in a contradiction there is at once unity and struggle, and it is this that impels things to move and change. Contradictions exist everywhere, but they differ in accordance with the different nature of different things. In any given phenomenon or thing, the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and transitory, and hence relative, whereas the struggle of opposites is absolute."

12. "Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years. To interpret history from this viewpoint is historical materialism; standing in opposition to this viewpoint is historical idealism."

13. "We can learn what we did not know. We are not only good at destroying the Old World, we are also good at building the new."

14. "Communists must be ready at all times to stand up for the truth, because truth is in the interests of the people; Communists must be ready at all times to correct their mistakes, because mistakes are against the interests of the people."

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

16. "Every Communist working in the mass movements should be a friend of the masses and not a boss over them, an indefatigable teacher and not a bureaucratic politician."

17. "In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class."

My favorite is:

16. "Every Communist working in the mass movements should be a friend of the masses and not a boss over them, an indefatigable teacher and not a bureaucratic politician."

The rest of that sentence is "in prison." Since that is what happened in his China.

You were there, so you know.

Mao also banned corporal punishment in military.

Corporal punishment in militaries was common at the time, but Mao was against it and against Commandism.

He insisted that even a general should take advice from ordinary soldier, promoting equality among ranks and classes in the country.

“Build a man a fire, and you only keep him warm for the night. But set a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.”

"Words and actions should help to unite, not divide, the people of our various nationalities; They should be beneficial, not harmful, to socialist construction; They should help to consolidate, not weaken, the people’s democratic dictatorship; They should help to consolidate, not weaken, democratic centralism; They should help to strengthen, not discard or weaken, the leadership of the Communist Party; They should be beneficial, not harmful, to international socialist unity.

Of these six criteria of words, the most important are the socialist path and the leadership of the party."

Mao Zedong's IQ is not publicly known, but he is widely considered to have been a highly intelligent individual. He was well-read and well-educated, and was known for his strategic thinking and ability to inspire and lead others. Mao did not attend a university, but he did receive a good education in his youth, and later in his life, he was a voracious reader and self-taught himself. He was known for his excellent memory and ability to quote from literature and philosophy. He was also a talented poet, writer, and speaker. Overall, Mao was considered a highly intelligent and well-educated individual, despite not having a formal university education.

“Much like an omelette, one cannot make a rational society without cracking skulls.”

They all sound weird when you don't understand Chinese. I know what they sound like in Chinese so yeah.

Well, of course they sound better in Chinese.

Usually, a lot gets lost in translation.