Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.
Deng XiaopingRead
It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
Interpretation
The effectiveness of an action is more important than the means used to achieve it.
This quote from Deng Xiaoping emphasizes pragmatism and the importance of results over ideology. It suggests that what truly matters is the outcome of one's actions, regardless of the methods or appearances involved, urging a focus on practicality and effectiveness in problem-solving.
In practice
During a business meeting to discuss productivity strategies, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of results over rigid procedures.
Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.
China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one... If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.
Part of resilience is deciding to make yourself miserable over something that matters, or deciding to make yourself miserable over something that doesn't matter.
There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.
Hear this or not, as you will. Learn it now, or later -- the world has time. Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui -- these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.
The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
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