Vladimir Putin

People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don’t want to learn it themselves.

I am never guided by a possible assessment of my work.

Our soldiers are there (in Syria) in order to secure Russia’s interests in this critically important part of the world, which is so near to us. And they will stay there, for as long as it is in Russia’s interest for them to do so.

Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area.

I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

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

The chief evil is unlimited government…nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.

Already under Obama, the nuclear modernization programs had reached the level where they were posing a literal first-strike threat to Russia. Trump is escalating it, even more modernization of extremely dangerous forces, also significantly lowering the threshold for nuclear war.

The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on – because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.

Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.

If you claim to have a theory that deduces unexpected consequences from nontrivial principles, let’s see it.

If the nation is not capable of preserving itself and reproducing, if it loses it vital bearings and ideals, then it doesn’t need foreign enemies – it will fall apart on its own.

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

The profusion of government … [has] retarded the natural progress.

The system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

It would be a mistake to link anything that Israel does to a certain circumstance. And it is a mistake to feel comfortable in any circumstance just because Israel did not act on it.

I’ve been in the Labour Party all my life. I am a socialist. I am determined to see a fairer and more equal society.

Anarcho-syndicalism took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, that they ought to control the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations…

Of course there are differences, but they are not fundamental. Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

I don’t mind a good fight. For reasons known only to God, I’ve had quite a few tough ones in my life. But I learned an important lesson along the way: In the end, it matters less that you can fight. What you fight for is the real test.

…if you want to be praised and have your books reviewed and told how brilliant you are and get great jobs, it’s not advisable to be a dissident. It’s not impossible, and in fact the system has enough looseness in it so that it can be done, but it is not easy.