Don't wait untill problems pile up and cause a lot of trouble before trying to solve them. Leaders must march ahead the movement, not lag behind it.

It is good that since the outbreak of the war with Japan, more and more revolutionary writers have been coming to Yan'an... But it does not necessarily follow that... they have integrated themselves completely with the masses here. The two must be completely integrated if we are to push ahead with our revolutionary work.

In times of difficulty we must not lose sight of our achievements, must see the bright future and must pluck up our courage.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

At the beginning of anything out of the ordinary, the mass of the people always dislike it.

Without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years [the eighteen years since the founding of the Party] the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.

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