Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are “poor and blank”. This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.

The government burns down whole cities while the people are forbidden to light lamps.

. . . dogma is less useful than cow dung. One can make whatever one likes out of it, even revisionism. . . .

The wealth of society is created by the workers, peasants and working intellectuals. If they take their destiny into their own hands, follow a Marxist-Leninist line and take an active attitude in solving problems instead of evading them, there will be no difficulty in the world which they cannot overcome.

In a suitable temperature, an egg becomes a chicken, and there are no chickens born of stones.

Long distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.

All counter-revolutionary wars are unjust, all revolutionary wars are just.