The popular masses are like water, and the army is like a fish. How then can it be said that when there is water, a fish will have difficulty in preserving its existence? An army which fails to maintain good discipline gets into opposition with the popular masses, and thus by its own action dries up the water.
Mao ZedongA strategic plan based on the over-all situation of both belligerents is ... more stable, but it too is applicable only in a given strategic stage and has to be changed when the war moves towards a new stage. ... [Conversely, tactical plans may] ... have to be changed several times a day.
Mao ZedongEvery 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.
Mao ZedongLet the ancient serve the present, let the foreign serve the national; by developing that which has been accomplished one creates something that is new.
Mao ZedongThose experienced in work must take up the study of theory and must read seriously; only then will they be able to systematize and synthesize their experience and raise it to the level of theory, only then will they not mistake their partial experience for universal truth and not commit empiricist errors.
Mao Zedong