Skip to content

Empress Dowager Cixi Quotes

d. 1908 China

Empress Dowager Cixi (Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi; 慈禧太后) (29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908.

China
Monarchs

Random Empress Dowager Cixi quote

4 quotes

Your tail, is becoming too heavy to wag.

Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?

Had the foreign legations being subjected to the full force of bombardment, would those buildings still be intact today? (Original Chinese:設使火轟水灌，豈能一律保全？)
Source:Imperial Decree on events leading to the signing of Boxer Protocol.

"寧贈友邦,不與家奴." or 宁予於外盗, 不予於家贼. (We would rather give our state to "neighboring friends" (foreigners), not to our household slaves ̈(Han Chinese).)

Misattributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Empress Dowager Cixi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.