Vladimir Putin

Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist’s job is very interesting.

Firstly, the use of our armed forces in the battlefield is a unique experience, a unique tool by which to improve our armed forces. No amount of military exercise could compare with the use of force in combat conditions.

With regards to big business, I spoke about this a few years ago at one of the public meetings with our business leaders. I warned them that this situation, which we see today, could develop. I warned them about this and recommended at the time that our business keeps its capital in Russia.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is… not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of majority. That’s the way it’s done in the U.S., and that’s the way it’s done in Russia.

Russian democracy is the power of the Russian people with their own traditions of national self-government, and not the realisation of standards foisted on us from outside.

For many years, election campaigns here have been run by the public relations industry and each time it’s with increasing sophistication. Quite naturally, the industry uses the same technique to sell candidates that it uses to sell toothpaste or lifestyle drugs.

A free press is essential to our democracy, but much of our press isn’t very free at all.

Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. 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.

[on Michelle Obama] She’s fundamentally honest – goes out there, speaks her mind, jokes. She doesn’t parse her words or select them with an antenna for political correctness.

We believe that Lebanon has been the first real experience for all the Arabs.

Everything will probably never be OK. But we have to try for it.

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

Arafat’s departure has created an awesome opportunity.

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

The glory of being a carrier pilot has certainly worn off.

Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Russia does not want confrontation of any kind. And we will not take part in any kind of ‘holy alliance.’

We must understand that governments cannot create real jobs. Only entrepreneurs can do that.

I want every individual who has the potential and qualifications to succeed in higher education to be given the opportunity to participate, whatever their family background.

Education is a system of imposed ignorance.