Mikhail Gorbachev

I couldn’t wait to get to the most powerful position, because I thought then I would be able to fix problems that only the leader can fix. But when I got there, I realized we needed revolutionary change.

I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.

What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.

Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth.

Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. … If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.

I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

You don’t win wars by dying for your country you win wars by making the other son of a b*tch die for his.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

It’s been a big week for our side. Over on the beaches of Normandy our boys have fired the opening guns of the long awaited drive to liberate the world.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can’t get away this time!

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle.There was no use in saying We don’t want it; we won