Sun Yat-Sen Quotes

We know a way now to make use of democracy, and we know how to change the attitude of people towards government, but yet the majority of people are without vision. We who have prevision must lead them and guide them into the right way if we want to escape the confusions of Western democracy and not follow in the tracks of the West.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

China's republican politics is like a child who just started schooling. He must have a good teacher and be surrounded by good friends. By the same token, the Chinese people, new to the republican politics, must be educated properly. The revolutionary government should be the people's tutor to impart advanced awareness and experience.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

Japan today has become acquainted with the Western civilization of the rule of Might, but retains the characteristics of the Oriental civilization of the rule of Right. Now the question remains whether Japan will be the hawk of the Western civilization of the rule of Might, or the tower of strength of the Orient.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

When the war was in progress, England and France agreed wholeheartedly with the Fourteen Points. As soon as the war was won, England, France, and Italy tried to frustrate Wilson's program because it was in conflict with their imperialist policies. As a consequence, the Peace Treaty was one of the most unequal treaties ever negotiated in history.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

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

~ Sun Yat-Sen