All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.

...it is impossible for a genuine people's revolution in any country to win victory without various forms of help from the international revolutionary forces.

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.

Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.

We have an army for fighting as well as an army for labour. For fighting, we have the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies but even they do a dual job, warfare and production. With these two kinds of armies, and with a fighting army skilled in these two tasks and in mass work, we can overcome our difficulties and defeat Japanese imperialism.

At certain times in the revolutionary struggle, the difficulties outweigh the favorable conditions and so constitute the principal aspect of the contradiction and the favorable conditions constitute the secondary aspect. But through their efforts the revolutionaries can overcome the difficulties step by step and open up a favorable new situation, thus a difficult situation yields place to a favorable one.

Long distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.