"We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view"
About this Quote
The intent is pedagogical and prosecutorial at once. It instructs cadres and citizens to distrust inherited horizons - tradition, local loyalties, “old” knowledge - and it indicts those who resist change as provincials mistaking limitation for truth. That’s the subtext: opposition isn’t merely wrong; it’s small. The metaphor turns a political program into an epistemological rescue mission.
Context matters because Mao’s China was obsessed with catching up, purging weakness, and manufacturing a new human being fit for modernity. The frog story flatters the listener with the promise of expanded vision while also justifying drastic, top-down disruption: if reality is larger than you think, then the shock of “surfacing” can be presented as necessary, even benevolent. The darker irony is that wells can be replaced by other wells. In Maoist politics, the demand to see “the bigger sky” often came paired with strict limits on which sky you were allowed to describe.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
|---|---|
| Source | Later attribution: The Fire Will Not Consume You—Isaiah 43:2B (James David Parker, 2015) modern compilationISBN: 9781462410866 · ID: eIsvBgAAQBAJ
Evidence:
... We think too small . Like the frog at the bottom of the well . He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well . If he surfaced , he would have an entirely different view . " The Holy Spirit of God had pulled me from the 149 The ... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Tse-Tung, Mao. (2026, February 9). We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-think-too-small-like-the-frog-at-the-bottom-of-20166/
Chicago Style
Tse-Tung, Mao. "We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view." FixQuotes. February 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-think-too-small-like-the-frog-at-the-bottom-of-20166/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view." FixQuotes, 9 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-think-too-small-like-the-frog-at-the-bottom-of-20166/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.
