Frog Quotes - page 4
You will say, 'How can chance assemble in one place all the things necessary to produce an oak tree?' My answer is that it would be no miracle if the matter thus arranged had not formed an oak. But it would have been a very great miracle if, once the matter was thus arranged, an oak had not been formed. A few less of some shapes, and it would have been an elm, a poplar, a willow, an elder, heather or moss. A little more of some other shapes and it might have been a sensitive plant, an oyster in its shell, a worm, a fly, a frog, a sparrow, an ape or a man.
Cyrano de Bergerac
In approaching a problem a Marxist should see the whole as well as the parts. A frog in a well says, "The sky is no bigger than the mouth of the well." That is untrue, for the sky is not just the size of the mouth of the well. If it said, "A part of the sky is the size of the mouth of a well", that would be true, for it tallies with the facts. What we say is that in one respect the Red Army has failed (i.e., failed to maintain its original positions), but in another respect it has won a victory (i.e., in executing the plan of the Long March). In one respect the enemy won a victory (i.e., in occupying our original positions), but in another respect he has failed (i.e., failed to execute his plan of "encirclement ant suppression” and of "pursuit and suppression”). That is the only appropriate formulation, for we have completed the Long March.
Mao Zedong
