Vladimir Putin

It is necessary to suppress any extremist actions, on all sides, regardless of their origin.

I am not prejudiced in any way.

We are not going to close anything… I also worked in the security services and know it is easiest to ban, and harder to find civilized solutions. Therefore, I’m going to urge all my colleagues to take this route, the route of security and law enforcement agencies using modern methods to combat offences, including terrorism, without restricting freedoms including on the Internet.

I swim almost every day, a thousand meters.

[on Trump] It is not our business to asses his worthiness, but he is the absolute leader of the presidential race.

Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.

If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences…Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

The most significant indicator that there is no disaster in Iraq is the fact that there is no exodus.

We’re no longer in the Cold War. Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable.

When Lebanon started its resistance it was a small and divided country.

I do not feel that we should set up people as ‘models’; rather actions, thoughts, principles.

I said on the Department of Justice, I would stay uninvolved. Now I may get involved at some point if it gets worse.

Institutional structures are legitimate insofar as they enhance the opportunity to freely inquire and create, out of inner need; otherwise, they are not.

Is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?

Let’s not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.

Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don’t think people didn’t know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason.

I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s won a poll.

I have a very positive attitude to anyone who is protecting the environment, but it’s inadmissible when people are using it as a means of promoting themselves, using it as a source of self-enrichment. I don’t want to name any specific examples… but often, environmentalism is used to blackmail companies.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.