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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of broadening one's perspective and thinking beyond limitations.
This quote by Mao Zedong uses the metaphor of a frog in a well to illustrate how a limited viewpoint can prevent us from seeing the broader possibilities that exist. Just as the frog believes the sky is only as wide as the top of the well, individuals may restrict their ambitions and aspirations due to their narrow experiences. By encouraging one to 'surface,' the quote highlights the transformative power of expanding our horizons and realizing the vast opportunities that lie beyond our immediate surroundings.
In practice
In a personal development seminar to encourage participants to broaden their goals.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.
Books are yours, Within whose silent chambers treasure lies Preserved from age to age; more precious far Than that accumulated store of gold And orient gems, which, for a day of need, The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. These hoards of truth you can unlock at will.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.
The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.
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