Mao Zedong

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other.

When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue.

It's sadly predictable that the only way you can come up with a way to celebrate the liberation you feel at leaving the old system behind is by coming up with a "system of liberation", as if such a thing could exist - but that's what we can expect from those who have never known anything other than systems and systematizing, I guess.

Return to Shaoshan I regret the passing, the dying, of the vague dream: my native orchards thirty-two years ago. Yet red banners roused the serfs, who seized three-pronged lances when the warlords raised whips in their black hands. We were brave and sacrifice was easy and we asked the sun, the moon, to alter the sky. Now I see a thousand waves of beans and rice and am happy. In the evening haze heroes are coming home.

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.

If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution.

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