Vladimir Putin

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

Hitler wanted to destroy Russia- everyone needs to remember how that ended

Politics should not interfere with sports. And sports should impact politics.

As far as oligarchs who acquire sports team abroad, and invest money abroad, I wouldn’t treat this phenomenon as something bad.

Radicals can be found in any environment.

Despite all the achievements of civilisation, the human being is still one of the most vulnerable creatures on earth.

In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.

International terrorism is throwing down a challenge, and not just to Russia.

Sometimes – history needs a push.

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

This American government – what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.

I was shocked more than most white people to find we had a black President!

Few people understand the magnitude of the catastrophe that happened late in the 1980s when the Communist Party had failed to modernize the Soviet Union.

This debate is now about injustice and inequality. Two years ago, it would have been about benefits scroungers. We’ve changed the language and changed the mood. Labour is in good heart.

[The general population – “the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”] are allowed to vote every once in a while, pick out one of us smart guys. But then they are supposed to go home and do something else like watch football or whatever it may be.

So it seems like if they want to reduce abortion, the best thing to do would be to support contraception – but they’re against contraception, too, because contraception and abortion decouple sexuality from procreation. That’s why I think religious preoccupation with abortion is largely about controlling the sexuality of women.

Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.

Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.