“Criticisms from democratic personages can be of only two kinds, those that are wrong and those that are not. Criticisms that are not wrong can help remedy our shortcomings while wrong ones must be refuted. As for such types as Liang Shu-ming, Peng Yi-hu and Chang Nai-chi, if they want to fart, let them. That will be to our advantage, for everybody can judge whether the smell is good or foul, and through discussion the majority can be won over and these types isolated.”

— Mao Zedong

Talk at a Conference of Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal and Autonomous Region Party Committees http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_57.htm (27 January 1957)

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Mao Zedong181

Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of… 1893–1976

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Introduction: Nonviolence has lost the debate <br class="br">"The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence

“If any one here can find a single wrong argument and can refute it, I will let him cut off my head.”

Xuanzang (602–664) Chinese Buddhists monk, scholar, traveler, and translator

Quoted in Durant, Will (1963). Our Oriental heritage. New York: Simon & Schuster.

“It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 12 (at page 107)

“One of our greatest strengths as a democracy is that when we're headed in the wrong direction, we can correct our course. When policies are clearly not working, we, the people, can change them.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, DNC Address (2004)
Context: One of our greatest strengths as a democracy is that when we're headed in the wrong direction, we can correct our course. When policies are clearly not working, we, the people, can change them. If our leaders make mistakes, we can hold them accountable — even if they never admit their mistakes.
I firmly believe America needs new leadership that will make us stronger at home and respected in the world.

“I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it. That's not what the Republicans do. … I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. But, no, I'm not like Mitt Romney, whose book is called No Apology, the Case for American Greatness. Really? Always waving the big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We're number one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fat toddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one in literacy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in social mobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability of one generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Sweden coming tenth in Swedish meatballs.

“Occasionally we all do wrong things from right motives. Only time can prove us right or wrong. The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway?”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: The Devil's Web