Quotes by Sun Yat-sen

At present, England, America, France, Italy, and Japan constitute the so-called 'Big Five.' Even with the rise of Germany and Soviet Russia, the world has only seven Powers. When China becomes strong, she can easily win first place in the Council of Nations.

Judging from the experience of the European War, imperialism renders no great benefit to any nation, whereas liberty for all nationalities is the only principle by which humanity will ever be saved.

Revolution is usually a bloody affair. Our Revolution of 1911 did not shed much blood because our people are a peace-loving people. This peace-loving quality is the greatest virtue of the Chinese.

An individual should not have too much freedom. A nation should have absolute freedom.

The government should train and direct the people in their acquisition of political knowledge and ability, thereby enabling them to exercise the powers of election, recall, initiative, and referendum.

The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit...they are just a heap of loose sand...Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat.

The Revolution has not yet succeeded. Comrades, you must carry on!

The whole world is one family.

It is my idea to make capitalism create socialism in China so that these two economic forces of human evolution will work side by side in future civilization.

Two thousand years ago, we abandoned imperialism and militarism. We have been peace-lovers ever since.

We should use our old moral values and our love of peace as the foundation of national reconstruction and look forward to the day when we shall become leaders in world reconstruction upon lines of international justice and good will.

In the construction of a country, it is not the practical workers but the idealists and planners that are difficult to find.

Class war is not the cause of social progress; it is a disease developed in the course of social progress. The cause of the disease is the inability to subsist, and the result of the disease is war.

True is the saying: 'In order to make the world tranquil and happy, the nation must first be well governed!'

Our youths are constantly trying to learn everything the West has to teach, but what is newest in the West has existed in China for thousands of years.

Of the people, by the people, for the people.

I am a Christian; God sent me to fight evil for my people. Jesus was a revolutionist; so am I.

We intend to try by every means in our power to seize the country and create a government without bloodshed.

As for my religion, I worship Jesus.

We say that a group united and developed in the royal way, by forces of nature, is a race; a group united and developed by way of might, by human forces, is a state. This, then, is the difference between a race or nationality and a state.

Revolutionaries were depressed and close to emotional breakdown; after the failure, they left successively.

How can human rights be ever developed for the majority of Chinese people? The only way is to organize. To organize workers, peasants, merchants, industrialists, and students at the grassroots level.

We want to overthrow the imperial power not because it is Manchurian but because we want republicanism... We republican revolutionaries can never have the notion of becoming emperors after the revolution, like all the peasant rebels did in the past.

Remember that a civilized nation cannot just have one party; if there were only one party, this would merely be a dictatorship. Politics could not advance.

The individual must not be allowed to be overly free, but the country must be entirely free. When the country can exercise freedom, China will have become a mighty and prosperous nation.

When the nation can act freely, then China may be called strong. To make the nation free, we must each sacrifice his freedom.

The India-China intercourse began from the era of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Both interacted with each other peacefully and conducted scholarly and ideological exchanges. Both loved and admired each other; never had there been a slight clash.

It is the common wish of the people that the autocratic rule of the Manchu government be overthrown, that the Republic of China be strengthened, and that people's livelihood and welfare be pursued.

We should not underestimate that: the Chinese people's ignorance. Thousands of years of despotism had been such a poison that their understanding of modern politics is even inferior to that of the black slaves and other immigrants.

All our compatriots know that the loss of Mongolia would mean the demise of our country. We would rather resist Russia and die heroically than succumb to Russia and perish shamefully.

China's many nationalities need only to be transformed into the Chinese nation and to make it a highly civilized nation; then the nationalization process will be completed.

The difference between the Chinese workers and foreign workers lies in the fact that the latter are oppressed only by their own capitalists and not by those of other countries.

When the people share everything in the state, then will we truly reach the goal of the Min Sheng Principle, which is Confucius' hope of a 'great commonwealth.'

After the Manchu government had carried on wars with foreign nations and had been defeated, China was forced to sign many unequal treaties. Foreign nations are still using these treaties to bind China, and as a result, China fails at whatever she attempts.

If we want the Republic to be solid, we must first build its foundation. We need not look abroad for this foundation; we should seek it in the hearts of all the people of the nation.

China more than two milleniums ago had already considered the idea of democracy, but at that time she could not put it into operation.

For forty years, I have devoted myself to the cause of the people's revolution with but one aim in view -- the elevation of China to a position of freedom and equality among the nations.

Like Moscow, I wish to lay the foundation of the Chinese Republic deeply in the minds of the young generation -- the workers of tomorrow.

The goal of the revolution is to achieve the people's rights, but during the course of the revolution, we must stress military power -- and the two are mutually contradictory.

We must wait for the official history of the Chinese Revolution to record in greater detail the invaluable work of our Japanese friends.

At Kobe, whither I fled from Hong Kong, I took a step of great importance. I cut off my cue, which had been growing all my life.

I am a coolie and the son of a coolie. I was born with the poor, and I am still poor. My sympathies have always been with the struggling mass.

We shall establish an united Chinese Republic in order that all the peoples -- Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, Tartars, and Chinese -- should constitute a single powerful nation.

At thirteen, I accompanied my mother to the Hawaiian Islands. There, for the first time, I saw the wonder of a steamship and the vastness of the ocean. From that time on, I was eager to acquire the knowledge of the West and to fathom the mysteries of nature.

We are the poorest and weakest state in the world, occupying the lowest position in international affairs; the rest of mankind is the carving knife and the serving dish, while we are the fish and the meat.

Because of poverty, we must adopt the capitalist means of production to develop our resources to get rich. However, if we ignore the issue of social justice at the beginning of China's industrialization, we will sow the seeds of class warfare in the future.

The Chinese people have only family and clan groups; there is no national spirit. Consequently, in spite of four hundred million people gathered together in one China, we are, in fact, but a sheet of loose sand.

No matter what nationalities became a part of our country in the future, they would have to assimilate into the Han nationality. The nationalism our party supports is a positive nationalism. Do not forget that.

We can learn something from Marxist thinking, but we cannot follow Marxist methods.

This thing called nationalism is a treasure that a country uses to try to develop and a nationality uses to try to survive. China has lost this treasure.

Which, autocracy or democracy, is really better suited to modern China? If we base our judgment upon the intelligence and the ability of the Chinese people, we come to the conclusion that the sovereignty of the people would be far more suitable for us.

We should recognize that nationalism does not mean discriminating against people of a different nationality. It simply means not allowing such people to seize our political power, for only when we Han are in control politically do we have a nation.

The key to success is action, and the essential in action is perseverance.

A republic has been established, and our compatriots in Mongolia, Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang, who have always been a part of China, are all now Chinese citizens who are masters of their country.

When only a minority consisting of capitalists can enjoy the good life, while the majority of workers must endure hardship, they will naturally not be able to live together in peace and harmony.