Vladimir Putin

If you want my personal attitude, I would tell you that I don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation.

Who is going to help them abroad? They are just persecuted there. Conditions are created making their work impossible. This is a big mistake by those who are doing this in the West.

I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker’s family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens.

China has created very good investment tools, including an entire network of very large funds. The Russian Private Investment Fund works with some of those funds, with China’s largest investment funds.

I think the American people should express their preferences, and we’ll accept their choice.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

But do the governors themselves need that? Are they ready to line up under the vertikal? They are. After all, the governors are part of the country, and they also suffer from management weaknesses. Not everyone is going to like everything. You can’t please everybody, but you can find some common approaches. I was also interested in learning more about the country. I had only ever worked in St. Petersburg, apart from the time I spent abroad. . . . Of course, my seven years of experience in Peter was good experience, both administrative and managerial. But Peter isn’t the whole country. I wanted to travel and see things. So, why did you drop that interesting job and go to work as director of the FSB? Do you have some affinity for the agencies? No. I wasn’t asked whether or not I wanted to go, and they had given me no inkling that I was even being considered for such an appointment. The president simply signed a decree. . . .

Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

President Reagan put it best: Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

To lay down… limits to the action of the government; to confer certain rights on private persons, and to secure to them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights… [are] the main objects.

Poor and suffering people do not have the luxury of indulging in fairy tales. Not uncommonly, their own experience gives them a grasp of realities that are well concealed by the intellectual culture.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

The North has been held back by out of touch Westminster politicians. Let’s hand power to northern communities to manage their transport systems.

Democracy don’t rule the world, you better get that in your head; this world is ruled by violence, but I guess that’s better left unsaid.

I’m a history buff, and I know that big changes take time. But I also know that, setting politics aside, usually things are never as good as you think they are or as bad as you think they are. And that has served me well temperamentally.

I welcome David Cameron’s work. This idea, or programme, that he describes as a Big Society, as I understand it, means that the gaps between different groups of people should be bridged. I think this is a very democratic idea, and I support that.

As far as we are concerned, we Syria have not changed.

It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.

When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.