Vladimir Putin

Construction of the first gas pipeline system was started during the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, and for all those years, from the 1960s until this day, Russia has been fulfilling its contract obligations in a very consistent and reliable way, regardless of the political situation.

At least in Russia, you cannot just go and tap into someone’s phone conversation without a warrant issued by court. That’s more or less the way a civilized society should go about fighting terrorism.

If you want my personal attitude, I would tell you that I don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation.

There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.

I don’t regret anything. I did everything absolutely correctly.

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

We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.

One man with a gun can control 100 without one. … Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms.

For the Leninist, the masses must be strictly disciplined, while the socialist will struggle to achieve a social order in which discipline “will become superfluous” as the freely associated producers “work for their own accord” (Marx).

Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.

…corporations are fundamentally illegitimate, …they don’t have to exist at all in their modern form. Just as other oppressive institutions – slavery, say, or royalty – have been changed or eliminated, so corporate power can be changed of eliminated.

I think Comey was the ringleader of this whole den of thieves. It’s a den of thieves.

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own… Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland.

Why did the U.S. decide to normalize relations with Cuba?…Not a magnanimous gesture of courage to bring Cuba-to protect Cuba from its isolation, to save them from their isolation; quite the opposite, it was to save the U.S. from its isolation with the rest of the world.

It’s not going to be easy to proceed. There are going to be barriers, difficulties, hardships, failures- it’s inevitable. But unless the process that is taking place here and elsewhere in the country and around the world, unless that continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high.

And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

In the future, there will be fewer but better Russians.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

What a waste that we lost Mussolini. He is a first-rate man who would have led our party to power in Italy.

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.

Obviously, I’m always thinking about it. A successor, in the ordinary sense of the word – no, the Russian people, the voters will decide who that will be. But of course I think that we should raise a new, young generation of leaders, responsible people who will be able to take on the responsibility of Russia.