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Top Nien Cheng Quotes

Browse top 13 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Nien Cheng.

Favorite Nien Cheng Quotes

1. "One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party's demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effect on human relationships. Husbands and wives became guarded with each other, and parents were alienated from their children. The practice inhibited all forms of human contact, so that people no longer wanted to have friends. It also encouraged secretiveness and hypocrisy. To protect himself, a man had to keep his thoughts to himself. When he was compelled to speak, often lying was the only way to protect himself and his family." ~ Nien Cheng
2. "For so many years, the official propaganda machinery had denounced humanitarianism as sentimental trash and advocated human relations based entirely on class allegiance. But my personal experience had shown me that most of the Chinese people remained kind, sensitive, and compassionate even though the cruel reality of the system under which they had to live compelled them to lie and pretend. Pg. 409" ~ Nien Cheng
3. "Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat (a sign of well-being in China), these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them. Pg. 193" ~ Nien Cheng
4. "I supposed the Red Guards had enjoyed themselves. Is it not true that we all possess some destructive tendencies in our nature? The veneer of civilization is very thin. Underneath lurks the animal in each of us. If I were young and had had a working class background, if I had been brought up to worship Mao and taught to believe him infalliable, would I not have behaved exactly as the Red Guards had done?~79" ~ Nien Cheng
5. "My own outlook and my values had been formed long ago. I did not believe in dividing people into rigid classes, and I did not believe in class struggle as a means to promote progress. I believed that to rebuild after so many years of war, China needed a peaceful enviroment and the unity of all sections of society, not perpetual revolution. ~150-151" ~ Nien Cheng
6. "In fact, after living in Communist China for so many years, I realized that one of the advantages enjoyed by a democratic government that allows freedom of speech is that the government knows exactly who supports it and who is against it, while a totalitarian government knows nothing of what the people really think.~pg 55" ~ Nien Cheng
7. "Justice? What is justice? It's a mere word. It's an abstract word with no universal meaning. To different classes of people, justice means different things. ~149" ~ Nien Cheng
8. "While I listened to the words of homage to Mao, I remembered Mao's awesome power, like a blanket over China threatening to smother whomever he chose. Pg. 218" ~ Nien Cheng
9. "As I gazed at Mao's face wearing what was intended as a benign expression but was in fact a smirk of self-satisfaction, I wondered how one single person could have caused the extent of misery that was prevailing in China. There must be something lacking in our own character, I thought, that had made it possible for his evil genius to dominate. Pg. 259" ~ Nien Cheng
10. "From the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party, the greatest casualties of the Cultural Revolution were the Party's prestige and its ability to govern. Pg. 539" ~ Nien Cheng
11. "Pilfering was common in Communist China's state-owned enterprises, as the Party secretaries were slack in guarding properties that belonged to the government and poorly paid workers felt it fair compensation for their low pay. The practice was so widespread that it was an open secret. The workers joked about it and called it "Communism," which in Chinese translation means "sharing property." Pg. 390" ~ Nien Cheng
12. "As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had endured while fighting with all the willpower and intellect God had given me for that rare and elusive thing in a Communist country called justice. Pg. 351" ~ Nien Cheng
13. "But it also had many large posters with messages of a more peaceful nature. These extolled the country's economic achievement since the Cultural Revolution, which was supposed to have liberated the forces of production and increased productivity. Of course, the Cultural Revolution had done just the opposite. Official lies like this, habitually indulged in and frequently displayed by the authorities, served no purpose except to create the impression that truth was unimportant. Pg. 400" ~ Nien Cheng

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Today's Quote

The man who would truly know God must give time to Him."
Author: A.W. Tozer

What Did Nien Cheng Talk About?

Chin
China
Act
Thin
Lie
End
Ten
Communist
Lit
Ring
King
Per
Class
Ear
Wit
Thou
Revolution
Tend
While
Tie
Though
Party
Con
Ears
Era
Evolution
Govern
Low
Mean
Means
Ought
Year

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