Mao Zedong Quotes

The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of that term.

Revolution is a transfer of property from class to class.

A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

They make revolutionary propaganda because they know the privileged class can never be overturned peacefully.

Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.

The revolution eats its own. Capitalism re-creates itself.

The day of reckoning came, and that day was the Terror. The heirs of those who toiled made their account with the heirs of those who played.

To you, workers of Ireland, we address ourselves. AGITATE in the workshop, in the field, in the factory, until you arouse your brothers to hatred of the slavery of which we are all the victims. EDUCATE, that the people may no longer be deluded by illusory hopes of prosperity under any system of society of which monarchs or noblemen, capitalists or landlords form an integral part. ORGANIZE, that a solid, compact and intelligent force, conscious of your historic mission as a class, you may seize the reins of political power whenever possible and, by intelligent application of the working-class ballot, clear the field of action for the revolutionary forces of the future.

If the Kaiser does not abdicate the social revolution is inevitable. I do not want it—in fact I hate it like sin.

By a revolution in the state, the fawning sycophant of yesterday is converted into the austere critic of the present hour.

No great revolution can happen in a state without revolutions or mutations of private property.

A person born in the middle class, as I was, educated in bourgeois institutions, … is poorly prepared to take a leading part in revolutionary activity.

The main targets of attack by the peasants are the local tyrants, the evil gentry and the lawless landlords, but in passing they also hit out against patriarchal ideas and institutions, against the corrupt officials in the cities and against bad practices and customs in the rural areas. In force and momentum the attack is tempestuous; those who bow before it survive and those who resist perish. As a result, the privileges which the feudal landlords enjoyed for thousands of years are being shattered to pieces. Every bit of the dignity and prestige built up by the landlords is being swept into the dust.

In the course of time, however, the insolence of the nobles … induced the people to rise…. The nobility, to save a portion of their power, were forced to yield a share of it to the people.

We find—in the case of political affairs—that the most servile submission to privileged classes, and the grossest abuses of power by these, have been the precursors of the wildest ebullitions of popular fury,—of the overthrow indiscriminately of ancient institutions, good and bad.

What the proletariat needs is a bath of blood.

Revolution by the have-nots has a way of inducing a moral revelation among the haves.

The fact is, working stiffs with few opportunities and scant education are generally too busy getting by to engage in revolutionary projects to remake society. And history, in fact, shows us that terrorism is generally a bourgeois endeavor.

When ordinary people come together, they can upset the mighty.

Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.

It is a know fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

I titled my book "Revolution." And that is exactly what it is. France is experiencing a time of transformation - in education, on the labor market and in the pensions system. We're talking about a cultural revolution.

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.