Mao Zedong on Perspective and Small Thinking

"We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view."

-- Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong's Biography

Mao Zedong, Wade-Giles romanization Mao Tse-tung (born Dec. 26, 1893, Shaoshan, Hunan province, China—died Sept. 9, 1976, Beijing), principal Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led his nation’s communist revolution. Leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1935, he was chairman (chief of state) of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1959 and chairman of the party until his death.When China emerged from a half century of revolution as the world’s most populous nation and launched itself on a path of economic development and social change, Mao Zedong occupied a critical place in the story of the country’s resurgence. To be sure, he did not play a dominant role throughout the whole struggle. In the early years of the Chinese Communist Party, he was a secondary figure, though by no means a negligible one, and even after the 1940s (except perhaps during the Cultural Revolution) the crucial decisions were not his alone. Nevertheless, looking at the whole period from the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 to Mao’s death in 1976, one can fairly regard Mao Zedong as the principal architect of the new China.

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