Sun Yat-sen Quotes

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.

Those who wish to promote the welfare of the people should advance in solidarity with them and select the path most suitable for them. Since the history of our people is different from that of the people of the West, the steps that the two peoples choose to take in order to advance must also be different.

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.

The government should help and guide the weak and small racial groups within its national boundaries toward self-determination and self-government. It should offer resistance to foreign aggression, and simultaneously, it should revise foreign treaties in order to restore our equality and independence among the nations.

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

If China stood on an equal basis with other nations, she could compete freely with them in the economic field and be able to hold her own without failure. But as soon as foreign nations use political power as a shield for their economic designs, then China is at a loss how to resist or to compete successfully with them.

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

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.

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.

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.

I have passed English medical examinations in Hong Kong... In my youth, I experienced overseas studies. The languages of the West, its literature, its political science, its customs, its mathematics, its geography, its physics and chemistry - all these I have had the chance to study.

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.

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.

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

Decades of futile effort have not dampened my bold aspirations to save the nation. Born in a late age, I have not been able to witness the golden rule of Yao and Shun and other sage emperors of ancient China. Instead, my heart grieves at the suffering of the Chinese people under the cruel exploitation of the Tartar Slaves.

One may have broad or narrow talents, but only education renders them useful. Schools set up to train people will develop the intelligence of those who have it and end the stupidity of those who do not, providing a specialty to those who have narrow talent and broad knowledge to those with all-around ability.