Great Throughts Treasury

"To understand is hard. Once one understands, action is easy."

"An individual should not have too much freedom. A nation should absolute freedom."

"China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable."

"Class war is not the cause of social progress; it is a disease developed in the course of social progress. The cause of the disease is the inability to subsist, and the result of the disease is war."

"In the construction of a country, it is not the practical workers but the idealists and planners that are difficult to find."

"It is only after mature deliberation and thorough preparation that I have decided upon the Program of Revolution and defined the procedure of the revolution in three stages. The first is the period of military government; the second, the period of political tutelage; and the third, the period of constitutional government."

"The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit...they are just a heap of loose sand...Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat."

"The Revolution has not yet succeeded. Comrades, you must carry on!"

"If the idea of revolution is to win out, it must be through political enlightenment. It is useless to try to impose it by force of arms."

"Only powerful people have liberty."

"When we undertake a task, we should not falter from first to last until the task is accomplished; if we fail, we should not begrudge our lives as a sacrifice-this is what we mean by loyalty. The ancient teaching of loyalty meant sometimes death."