“Knowledge begins with practice, and theoretical knowledge, which is acquired through practice, must then return to practice. The active function of knowledge manifests itself not only in the active leap from perceptual to rational knowledge, but - and this is more important - it must manifest itself in the leap from rational knowledge to revolutionary practice.”

—  Mao Zedong

On Practice (1937)

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Mao Zedong 181
Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of… 1893–1976

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“Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Concluding Paragraph
On Practice (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 通过实践而发现真理,又通过实践而证实真理和发展真理。从感性认识而能动地发展到理性认识,又从理性认识而能动地指导革命实践,改造主观世界和客观世界。实践、认识、再实践、再认识,这种形式,循环往复以至无穷,而实践和认识之每一循环的内容,都比较地进到了高一级的程度。这就是辩证唯物论的全部认识论,这就是辩证唯物论的知行统一观。

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Context: Another evil, and one of the worst which arises from the separation of theoretical and practical knowledge, is the fact that a large number of persons, possessed of an inventive turn of mind and of considerable skill in the manual operations of practical mechanics, are destitute of that knowledge of scientific principles which is requisite to prevent their being misled by their own ingenuity. Such men too often spend their money, waste their lives, and it may be lose their reason in the vain pursuits of visionary inventions, of which a moderate amount of theoretical knowledge would be sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy; and for want of such knowledge, many a man who might have been a useful and happy member of society, becomes a being than whom it would be hard to find anything more miserable.
The number of those unhappy persons — to judge from the patent-lists, and from some of the mechanical journals — must be much greater than is generally believed.<!--p. 176

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