Like students going to school, the planes on their bombing missions fly over Beijing each morning. And each time I hear their engines attack the air I feel a certain slight tension, as if I were witnessing the invasion of Death, though this heightens my consciousness of the existence of Life.

All who have read a few old books have picked up the old tactics of considering every new idea a 'heresy' which must be rooted out.

Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.

Why should young people look for guides who hang out gided placards to advertise themselves? They would do better to look for friends, unite with them, and advance together towards some quarter where it seems possible to survive.

I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.