Quotes from Jung Chang

Kind-hearted observers found her full of pathos, and the less generous despised her.

This was what Moscow had intended: peasants must be coerced into doing things that left no way back into normal life. To "get them to join the revolution," the Party had decreed, "there is only one way: use Red terror to prod them into doing things that leave them with no chance to make compromises later with the gentry and bourgeoisie.

It was Cixi who championed women's liberation in a culture that had for centuries imposed foot-binding on its female population-a practice to which she put an end.

Both my mother and father regarded a traditional ceremony as old-fashioned and redundant. Both she and my father wanted to get rid of rituals like that, which they felt had nothing to do with their feelings. Love was the only thing that mattered to these two revolutionaries.

In the absence of clear knowledge, rumours have abounded and lies have been invented and believed.

Her demise would result in civil war, which for Westerners would mean especially the collapse of trade, the default of loans and the emergence of more Boxers. And so, for these overwhelming reasons, the Allies decided not to pursue the empress dowager.

A picture of vulnerability, she made the men feel protective and forgiving, happy to use the occasion to help a woman in need. But anyone stepping over a line would see a very different person as County Chief Woo witnessed.

Here it seemed that even shocking deaths were like a stone being dropped into a pond where the splash and the ripple closed over into stillness in no time.

Intelligent and competent, Louisa Pierson was far more than a source of information or advisor on diplomatic etiquette.

Cixi's style was not to force through drastic change, but to bring it about gradually through perseverence.

Muitas camponesas que vinham para a cidade mudavam de trajes para não parecer caipiras. Mas ela era inteiramente descontraída com suas roupas, o que mostrava a força de seu caráter.

In spring 1907, a Regulation for Women's Education was decreed, which made it official that women should receive education.

JH, meu cavalheiro sem armadura, pois sua força interior sob o mais brando dos exteriores basta para conquistar.

Although the Communists were opposed to torture in theory and on principle, officials were told that they should not intervene if the peasants wished to vent their anger in passionate acts of revenge.

The gung-ho spirit overrode caution, as ignorance triumphed over reason.

Mao's instruction to exterminate grass had led to a constant demand for manpower bc of the grass's obstinate nature.

Foreign opium imported into China was chiefly produced in British India and shipped solely from British ports.

Where there is a will to condemn, there is evidence.

Every word of Chairman Mao's is universal absolute truth, and every word equals ten thousand words!

Those touched-up images were not what her mirrors had been telling her for some time.

A night passed while Cixi dealt with one matter after another, conscious all the time that she just murdered her adopted son. She was forced to stop working at about eleven o'clock in the morning as death was imminent. She died less than three hours later.

I wanted no grand mission, no 'causes,' just a life - a quiet, perhaps a frivolous life - of my own.

Na verdade, a mesquinhez era uma característica fundamental de uma revolução em que se celebravam a intrusão e a ignorância, e incorporava-se a inveja no sistema de controle.

The two wills made it unmistakeably clear that it was Cixi's dying wish that the Chinese should have their parliament and their vote.