Vladimir Putin

The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

They invited a large investor, Coca-Cola, to take over a plot of land in Pulkovo Heights and install high-capacity power and communications cables, hoping that other companies would follow suit. It worked. After Coca-Cola developed their piece of land, Gillette came, then Wrigley, and then some pharmaceutical companies. An economic zone thus took shape within the city, where total investment now exceeds half a billion dollars. Furthermore, with the Committee’s encouragement, the city’s infrastructure began to be modernized to create the conditions necessary for successful business. The first major deal that Putin supported was the completion of a fiber-optic cable to Copenhagen. This project had been initiated back in the Soviet era but never completed. Now the efforts were successful, providing St. Petersburg with world-class international telephone connections.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

Even if we do not always agree on every aspect, nobody should take this as an excuse to declare us as enemies.

I don’t regret anything. I did everything absolutely correctly.

[on Trump] He is a very bright person, talented without any doubt.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Under Obama, the [Democratic] party was reduced to shambles at the local and state level, a particularly serious matter because the 2020 elections will determine redistricting, offering opportunities for gerrymandering even beyond today’s scandalous situation.

I am not one who – who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.

My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was similar to my reaction to the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini. In all cases, it is a victory for the human spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to socialists, since a great enemy of socialism had at last collapsed.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.

No one can match America. We have big hearts-and the courage to do what’s right. But we’re not the world’s policemen. And if we have to take on that role, we need to send a clear message that protection comes at a price. If other countries benefit from our armed forces protecting them, those countries should cover the costs. Period.

If you want to preserve – I’m very serious now – if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.

As a Zionist youth leader in the 1940’s, I was among those who called for a binational state in Mandatory Palestine. When a Jewish state was declared, I felt that it should have the rights of other states – no more, no less.

Kim Jong-un speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

The production of souls is more important than the production of tanks…. And therefore I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul.

It appears, our partners thought that this would never affect them, this counterproductive politics of restrictions and sanctions. But now we are seeing that this is happening.

On behalf of our nation, I want to apologise to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.

Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area.

The Bush administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for ‘undermining support for our troops.’