Roman Abramovich

I decided to sit quietly and do business and don’t stick your neck out and tell everybody everything belongs to me. That would only cause problems for myself. Therefore I never told these stories or declared all these things to anyone.

I was never involved in arms trading. In the Russian Federation, arms trading is the prerogative of the state.

I’ve never tried to impose pressure on the authority of the government through my business achievements. I cannot tell you what the others were doing.

To tell the truth I cannot call my childhood bad. In your childhood you can’t compare things: one eats carrots, one eats candy, both taste good. As a child you cannot tell the difference.

When I started to make more or less serious money – for those times – then, of course, I wanted to show everyone that life is different: it’s a new kind of life; we are earning this money. We wanted to pay taxes and live honestly.

I live on a plane. I like to visit London. If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice, and second would be New York. In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.

Americans Never Quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We Make History.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

Kings are the slaves of history.

He who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

To persons uninstructed in natural history, their country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.

History has shown there are no invincible armies.

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces – in nature, in society, in man himself.

How incredible our ancestors were. The first astrophysicists, scientists, physicians, mathematicians, architects, creators of so much of the world as we know it. It’s a blessing to know what cloth you’re cut from!

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.