Quotable quotes
Revolution: A means to an end

"The revolution... is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters."
Fidel Castro (1926-), president of Cuba.

"Revolution is trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering."
Tom Stoppard (1937-), English drmatist who writes plays for radio and television.

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with itt."
 Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989), American-born Jewish activist in the U.S. civil rights movement.

"The most heroic word in all languages is revolution."
Eugene Debs (1855-1926), the first president of the American Railway Union and one of the founding members of the Social Democratic Party in the United States.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th president of the United States.


1 January 1912

China's national father inaugurated

On 1 January 1912, Dr. Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as
the provisional president of the newly formed Republic of
China. In fact, Hong Kong had been an important place
for China’s national father.

Born in 1866, Dr. Sun was a son of a poor peasant family
in Xiangshan County in Guangdong Province. When he was
13, he left Xiangshan and went to Hawaii to study for four
years. Later, he came back to China.

In 1883, Dr. Sun came to Hong Kong to continue his
studies. He studied English in the Anglican Diocesan Home
and Orphanage – today’s Diocesan Boys’ School. A year
later, he transferred to Grand College – today’s Queen’s
College – and he was baptized in the Congressional Church
of the United States in Hong Kong.

At the age of 19, he enrolled in the Nanhua Medical School of Guangzhou Boji Hospital in China but was later transferred to the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. During this period, Dr. Sun met his best friends—Chen Shaobai, Wang Lie and Yang Heling—and they often discussed political affairs. These discussions gave inspiration to Dr. Sun.

Dr. Sun originally intended to help strengthen the Qing government. But he later realized that the only way to save China was to establish a new government because of the education and inspiration he obtained in Hong Kong. He once mentioned that all his revolutionary thoughts originated in Hong Kong.

Graduated in 1892 with excellent academic results, Dr. Sun became a doctor. However, he chose to be a revolutionary to save China.

In 1984, Dr. Sun founded Xingzhonghui in Honolulu. He later returned Hong Kong and set up headquarters at 15 Stanley Street. This was his first step to plan a revolution against the Qing government. In 1905, he founded Tongmenhui, uniting all revolutionaries together.

After lots of failures, the revolutionaries eventually succeeded in the Wuchang Uprising in 1911. Most provinces were free from the Qing government control and proclaimed independence. Revolutionaries set up a republic in Nanjing, and Dr. Sun was elected as the provisional president.

It was Dr. Sun who brought an end to imperial rule and started a new era in modern China. He led China in a new direction.