Mikhail Gorbachev

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.

Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared.

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.’

There are still independent newspapers and magazines, they do exist. But as for television, the situation is not as good. It’s one of the main problems. I would say, as regards the development of democracy, of democracy laying down roots – that is something that Russia still needs to address.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

A very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe [war]. I think that’s more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity…and therefore I think that it’s, in some sense, the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and violent.

What is a Rechtsstaat? It is obedience to the existing law.

No doubt that the U.S. is a super-power capable of conquering a relatively small country, but is it able to control it?

Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

We’re going to be campaigning on issues of social justice and poverty, you will be seeing a lot of me.

The events in Crimea themselves have nothing to do with what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other regions. In my opinion, when the world becomes unipolar, or when someone tries to make it so, then this one pole has the illusion that all issues can be settled through power. And only when there is a balance of power does the desire to negotiate appears.

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.

You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.

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

Americans believe their freedom to be the best instrument and surest safeguard… to secure for themselves a government which will allow them to acquire the things they covet and which will not debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions.

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.

The Jews are not a nation!

Quantity has a quality all its own.