Joseph Stalin

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a ‘peace conference’, you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.

Of all the treasures a state can possess, the human lives of its citizens are for us the most precious.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we are not to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well-known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist world and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the West and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid!

The reason why there is now no communist government in Paris is because in the circumstances of 1945 the Soviet army was not able to reach French soil.

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?

If in doubt, move decisions up to the President.

Throughout the two leadership campaigns I read quite a lot of Oscar Wilde.

We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.

I never attacked Rand Paul on his looks, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there.

U.S. society doesn’t want to play the role of international policeman.

Hitler wanted to destroy Russia- everyone needs to remember how that ended

The most effective device [of thought control developed in democratic societies] is the bounding of the thinkable, achieved by tolerating debate, even encouraging it, though only within proper limits.

Public officials are all right if they stay in their proper sphere and perform their proper functions but when they get greedy for wider scope and more power and money they lose their value and become parasites.

Power that isn’t really justified by the will of the governed should be dismantled.

When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: Why do I care if my high school’s team wins the football game? I don’t know anybody on the team, they have nothing to do with me… why am I here and applaud? It does not make any sense. But the point is, it does make sense: It’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it’s training in irrational jingoism. That’s also a feature of competitive sports.

The despotism of faction is not less to be dreaded than the despotism of an individual.

Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does? No. Does it mean I agree with Hezbollah and what they do? No. What it means is that I think to bring about a peace process, you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree … There is not going to be a peace process unless there is talks involving Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas and I think everyone knows that.

Don’t automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn’t considered key aspects of the issue.

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

The other candidates – they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work. They sweated like dogs…How are they gonna beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen.