Mikhail Gorbachev

A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That’s the most important thing.

Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.

Political leaders still think things can be done through force, but that cannot solve terrorism. Backwardness is the breeding ground of terror, and that is what we have to fight.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.

Any people has a right to self-determination, and now in Europe the process of diluting national sovereignty in the framework of a united Europe is more accepted.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media.

We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

One who views Latin America today [1981] might well assume that Hitler had won the war, though in fact it is American liberalism that a bears a major responsibility for the plague of terror and torture regimes that often mimic the Nazis.

We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue.

[The general population – “the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”] are allowed to vote every once in a while, pick out one of us smart guys. But then they are supposed to go home and do something else like watch football or whatever it may be.

Our society, including the liberals, must understand that there must be order.

We are well aware from which countries and through which countries the terrorists are receiving support. In the immediate future I shall be calling upon the leaders of these states to put a stop to this kind of activity.

I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.

It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t.