Mikhail Gorbachev

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

Sometimes when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face.

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

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

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: ‘You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.’

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.

If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.

In essence, they are sawing the branch on which they are sitting. This is counterproductive and damaging for those involved and for the global economy.

Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.

Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled.

Edward Bernays’ first great achievement, that sort of made a star out of him, was a public relations campaign trying to get women to smoke. So he had models walking down Fifth Avenue smoking cigarettes and showing how it makes you beautiful and slim.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

As you can see, even when [Adolf] Hitler desires to speak for peace, he cannot dispense with threats. This is symptomatic.

I’m one of those that believes you can’t be one kind of a man and another kind of president.

[on Osama bin Laden’s death] no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

We [U.S.S.R. and U.S.A.] can exist peacefully together if we don’t indulge in too much mutual fault-finding in all kinds of trifles.

Demographics aren’t destiny. Our culture isn’t the work of one race or religion. To suggest otherwise is to contradict our ideals and to doubt their power.

Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.