Capture of Nanking Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over Chung the bell mountain as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy. We must not stoop to fame like the overlord Hsiang Yu. If heaven has feeling it will grow old and watch our seas turn into mulberry fields.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of bravery and perseverance in the face of adversity while highlighting the connection between nature and human struggle.
Mao Zedong's quote reflects on the tumultuous events surrounding the capture of Nanking, invoking powerful imagery of nature's fury contrasted with human resolve. The mention of elation coupled with the need for courage suggests that true strength lies in overcoming challenges and resisting the temptation for personal glory, as illustrated by a historical reference to Hsiang Yu. The phrase about heaven feeling and watching over humanity's struggles underlines a belief in a moral order that rewards resilience and effort.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming personal challenges.
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2) Thousands of willow branches in a spring wind. Six hundred million of China, land of the gods, and exemplary like the emperors Shun and Yao. A scarlet rain of peach blossoms turned into waves and emerald mountains into bridges. Summits touch the sky. We dig with silver shovels and iron arms shake the earth and the Three Rivers. God of plagues, where are you going? We burn paper boats and bright candles to light his way to heaven.
We must have faith, first, that the peasant masses are ready to advance step by step along the road of socialism under the leadership of the Party, and second, that the Party is capable of leading the peasants along this road. These two points are the essence of the matter, the main current.
All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.
We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.
Peitaho Heavy rains fall on Yuyen, the northland kingdom of swallows. White pages of rain envelop the sky, and fishing boats off the Island of the Emperor Chin disappear on the ocean. Which way have they gone? More than a thousand years ago the mighty emperor Tsao Tsao cracked his whip and drove his army against the Tartars. He left us a poem: "Let us move east to the Stone Mountains." Today we still shiver in the autumn gale, in desolate winds, yet another man is in the world.
Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.
I was assigned boy at birth but I have always known I was a girl.
The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.
Although I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.
This is not the time to marry. My country is calling me. I have taken a vow to serve the country with my heart and soul.
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