Speech at the Meeting Held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Celebration of Comrade Wu Yuzhang's Sixtieth Birthday
January 15, 1940

... Everyone grows old. What makes the elderly valuable? If old age alone were valuable, then there would be too many valuable people. Therefore, we must have a standard throughout our lives. That is to say, what is valuable is that a person always does good deeds and never does bad deeds, does things beneficial to humanity and never does things harmful to others. If one does some good deeds at first but later does bad deeds, this is called a lack of perseverance. It is not difficult for a person to do a few good deeds; what is difficult is to do good deeds all one's life, never doing bad deeds, consistently benefiting the broad masses, consistently benefiting the youth, consistently benefiting the revolution, and struggling arduously for decades as if it were a single day—this is the most difficult thing of all! Our old comrade Wu Yuzhang is precisely such a person who has remained steadfast for decades as if it were a single day. He is sixty years old this year. From the time of the Tongmenghui to today, he has carried out revolution for forty years, enduring hardships and wandering through adversity, yet he has never wavered. This is extremely rare! Few of those who remained from the Tongmenghui are still with us today, and even fewer have consistently fought for the revolution and never changed their revolutionary integrity under any circumstances. To do this requires not only a firm and correct political direction but also a spirit of arduous struggle; otherwise, one cannot resist all kinds of evil forces and fierce storms, such as the threat of death, the threat of starvation, and the threat of revolutionary failure. Our comrade Wu Yuzhang has come through countless such storms. Therefore, we must learn from his many good qualities, but especially we must learn from his perseverance in the revolution. This is the most precious and commendable thing, and it is the glory of our Party.

—Speech at the Meeting Held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Celebration of Comrade Wu Yuzhang's Sixtieth Birthday