Skip to content

The real war is within us. History is a symptom of our disease.

— Mao Zedong Misattributed

Another quote →

Source, in full

This is a line from the 1995 film Nixon written by Oliver Stone, Christopher Wilkinson, and Stephen J. Rivele. The line is spoken by Mao (portrayed by Ric Young) through an interpreter during a fictionalized version of his meeting with Richard Nixon.

Topics

More quotes by Mao Zedong

Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

Guard against revisionism, particularly the emergence of revisionism at the party Centre.

Directives Regarding the Cultural Revolution (1966)

The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them.

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

The masses, the army, and the cadres are the three pillars on which we rely.

Directives Regarding the Cultural Revolution (1966)

All Mao Zedong quotes →

You may also like

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now.

Hunter S. Thompson

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

George Santayana Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mao Zedong (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.