DENG XIAOPING

Seek truth from facts.

When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.

Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.

Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big.

The minority yields to the majority!

Young leading cadres have risen up by helicopter. They should really rise step by step.

Let some people get rich first.

To get rich is glorious.

Reform is China's second revolution.

I’ve never formally been number 1 in the Party, but everybody keeps hanging around me, showing me deference. I have to give the nod on every important decision. I carry too much weight and that is not good for the Party or the state.

Leftist things have done terrible harm to our party in the past … Socialism may be ruined by rightism and may also be ruined by leftism. China must guard against rightism but should mainly guard against leftism.

With a good [political] system, even evil men cannot do evil.

Tibet is sparsely populated. The two million Tibetans are not enough to handle the task of developing such a huge region. There is no harm in sending Han into Tibet to help.... The key issues are what is best for Tibetans and how can Tibet develop at a fast pace, and move ahead …

A basic contradiction between socialism and the market economy does not exist.

The [American] President says one thing during the election; something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

Hide your strength, bide your time.

Development is the only hard truth.

So far as Chairman Mao's own hopes were concerned, he initiated the "Cultural Revolution" in order to avert the restoration of capitalism, but he had made an erroneous assessment of China's actual situation. In the first place, the targets of the revolution were wrongly defined, which led to the effort to ferret out "capitalist roaders in power in the Party". Blows were dealt at leading cadres at all levels who had made contributions to the revolution and had practical experience, including Comrade Liu Shaoqi.

By following the concept of one country, two systems, you dont swallow me up nor I you.

Any capitalism is superior to feudalism.

Chairman Mao's greatest contribution was that he applied the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, pointing the way to victory. It should be said that before the sixties or the late fifties many of his ideas brought us victories, and the fundamental principles he advanced were quite correct.

We mustn't fear to adopt the advanced management methods applied in capitalist countries. The very essence of socialism is the liberation and development of the productive systems. Socialism and market economy are not incompatible. We should be concerned about right-wing deviations, but most of all, we must be concerned about left-wing deviations.

Mao Zedong Thought was not created by Comrade Mao alone - other revolutionaries of the older generation played a part in forming and developing it - but primarily it embodies Comrade Mao's thinking. Nevertheless, victory made him less prudent, so that in his later years some unsound features and unsound ideas, chiefly "Left" ones, began to emerge. In quite a number of instances he went counter to his own ideas, counter to the fine and correct propositions he had previously put forward, and counter to the style of work he himself had advocated.

At the higher stage of communism, when the productive forces will be greatly developed and the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" will be practised, personal interests will be acknowledged still more and more personal needs will be satisfied.