Mao Zedong Quotes

The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the conquerer.

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so imperialism is in the mind of the imperialized.

I always start from the stand that it is imperialism that needs us, not we who need the imperialists.

In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.

Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people.

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

My instincts are always against people who want to fasten some sort of hegemony onto things.

America is an empire. I hope you know that now. All empires, by definition, are bumbling, shambolic, bullying, bureaucratic affairs, as certain of the rightness of their cause in infancy, as they are corrupted by power in their dotage.

Certainly, imperial power is never peaceably acquired or maintained.

There is not an example on record of any free state holding a province of the same extent and population without disastrous consequences. The nations conquered and held as a province have, in time, retaliated by destroying the liberty of their conquerors through the corrupting effect of extended patronage and irresponsible power.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.

In the past, the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, you don't even feel it. It might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

We should be lords over them…these are the politics of South Africa.

The same motives have, in all ages, compelled the strong to encroach on the weak, and the powerful and unprincipled to wrest by force or fraud, from the comparatively feeble and defenseless, wealth or property or dominion, richer pastures, more numerous herds, and a wider range of territory—opportunities for uncontrolled self—indulgence and freedom from the restraints of law and settled society.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

Look how the whole capitalist world is stretching out long arms towards the barbarous world and grabbing and clutching in eager competition at countries whose inhabitants don't want them; nay, in many cases, would rather die in battle, like the valiant men they are, than have them

We will bring imperialism to its knees.

A people that patiently lets itself be trampled, deserves to be trampled and crushed.

One conquered nation is one too many.

Imperialism dies hard, especially when there are people making money.

When our kings succeeded to the crown of England, the ministers of that nation took a short way to ruin us … All of our affairs, since the union of crowns, have been managed by the advice of English ministers, and the principle offices of the kingdom filled with such men as the court of England would be subservient to their designs.

All colonies are oppressed peoples.

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons in any other land.